Ignite
by HaveYouMetTheFrench
Summary: Book 1 of 5. The Doctor, Amy and Rory land on a mining asteroid in the 31st century. But when a record haul is brought up from the ice below, it looks like something else is surfacing too...something that will have devastating consequences for the Doctor. A Time Lady.
1. Discovery

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who is the property of the BBC, and I only get to borrow their things. Sadly.**

**Author's Note.**

**This is my very first complete work of fanfiction. It's been a long, frustrating (at times) and definitely educational experience, andI'm really hoping that you lot, the readers, are going to make it worth it. Certainly I'm not getting paid for any of this. **

**And though every author begs for this, PLEASE review. Not just so that I can have (hopefully, fingers crossed) glowing reports turning up in my inbox, but also for the constructive criticism. This is my first story, so I'm not expecting it to be perfect, and I'm still working on my writing style, which makes every opinion useful.**

**So feel free to tell me if you think I'm not writing the characters properly, etc. Just tell me; though no flames, please.**

**Enjoy!**

Sometimes Amy really hated the Doctor.

Amy knew that Rory thought she was a bad driver, but to her mind she was nothing compared to the Doctor. The worst she had done was crash into a house and put a _small_ (small, Rory!) dent in the Mini – the worst the Doctor could do was crash into a planet. Or blow them up. Or implode reality/the universe/time itself.

And just because that hadn't happened quite yet, that didn't mean she was grateful for being thrown about like she was then.

"Doctorrr!" she yelled, holding onto the railing desperately as the room swayed and rolled. She saw Rory tumble past her into the console, as the Doctor, laughing manically, pounded a panel with a mallet.

With a final muffled boom, the TARDIS landed, slamming them all to the floor. Amy let out a long breath. "I _really_ hate your driving." She groaned. She saw shoes appear beside her, and Rory helped her to her feet, apparently having managed to survive without breaking any bones.

"_That_ was a rough landing." Her husband said. "Are you all right, Amy?"

"I think so." She replied, pouting and rubbing her arm. "Hey, where's the Doctor?"

"Over here!" called a voice. "Safe and sound, not that anybody's asking." He popped out from around the console, and Amy and Rory gave him identical dirty looks, to which he simply treated them to his most innocent, boyish grin.

"Oh – it's more fun this way, and you know it." He clapped his hands together, and with a shout of "Come along, Ponds!" bounded out of the TARDIS doors.

* * *

Gedric grinned at the readings on the monitor. Pulling out his communicator, he set it to an open broadcast.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have excavation in 10...9...8...7...6...5..." He looked over the railing into the mine shaft, the cable stretching away into darkness, but slowly, inexorably, pulling something up...

4...Gedric could see the top of something now, the face of a huge cylinder, more than the length of two people across...

3...an enormous chuck of ice, smooth-edged from the drill, taller than it is wide...

2...solid and blue as a sapphire, bound by the black cable, but still frosted and sparkling...

1...and now Gedric could see it, right at the heart, suspended in the ice like a fly trapped in amber...

0.

With a whir and a boom the drum finished winding up the cable and came to a stop. The vast block of ice hung suspended over the mine shaft.

"Tam," he said. "I think you should get up here."

By the time Tamman (Tam for short) reached the drill room, Gedric was almost beside himself with excitement. "Look at it!" He couldn't help but grin – a wide gleeful smile. "Biggest one yet! A record, maybe – oh, think how much we'll get for this one, Tam!"

Tamman just rolled his eyes in his customary way, walking around in a circle underneath the ice; observing it from all angles. Stopping directly under the centre, he craned his neck to look up and frowned at it.

"How come it's so big, Ged?" Gedric sighed.

"Because it _is._ A whopper." Tam narrowed his eyes at him, and walked over to stand next to him.

"I don't mean the ore. I mean the ice. How come the laser cut it so big? Usually it cuts it much closer to the ore to save energy in the melt room. And look," he gestured to the ice "it's still frosted over. That should have melted on the way up."

Gedric pursed his lips, unwilling to let Tam pick fault with what could be a record-breaking find. A little extra money spent in the melt room will be more than made up for later.

"It's nothing to worry about. Probably a blip in the laser program – this _is_ the deepest we've ever extracted from. I'll check it over, make sure there's nothing wrong."

Tamman didn't look exactly satisfied with this, but then when did he ever look satisfied with anything? Tam might have been his friend, but he couldn't half be pessimistic sometimes. Once they'd got the ore out and had a celebratory glass of civi he'd cheer up. Gedric didn't get the chance to voice this thought, though, because just then Amer and Guro joined them.

Amer, black-and-silver haired and with lines in his face like a cliff face, let out a low whistle.

"Come on then," he ordered, jerking his head at the block of ice. "let's get this thing moving." Guro laughed and let out a little whoop of excitement.

"To the melt chamber!"

* * *

Amy poked her head out and looked around at the small space the TARDIS had landed in. It was dimly lit, but she could see metallic walls and small, blinking lights about a foot in front of her.

"Why do we _always_ land in cupboards?" she questioned to no-one in particular.

"Oh, that's not true," said Rory, joining her. "sometimes if we're lucky we land in an alleyway instead."

"What is _taking_ you so long?" The Doctor appeared suddenly, opening a sliding door in the wall in front of them. "You're not," - he made a face – "_kissing_ again, are you? I told, you, none of that in the control room-"

"Oh, stop being such a prude." Amy said, pushing past him. She entered a larger, better lit room, with the same metal walls and flickering neon lights. Combined with what looks like a bank of instruments across from her, it all reminded her distinctly of a submarine.

"So," she heard her husband say from somewhere behind her. "where are we?"

"I don't know." The Doctor answered cheerfully. "More fun this way. Just let the old girl take us where she wants to."

"So we could be anywhere?"

"Yep. We could be in the palace of the Confederate King of Pandar IV."

"Are we?"

"Well, no. I hope not. Last time I was there I almost got executed for sedition. Still on the list, actually."

"Do you even have any idea? Look on the scanner before we left, maybe."

"Why would I do that? That would be boring. Anyway, since when did you care so much about the date?"

"Well, you're always saying how you're going to take us round time and space, and _this _time I want to be sure you've, you know, _actually_ taken us to the future." The Doctor humphed.

Amy rolled her eyes and decided to interrupt.

"Boys!" she could practically _hear_ their heads turn towards her. They broke from their bickering – the Doctor still eyeing Rory mutinously - and joined her. She'd managed to find a computer in the bank of instruments, but couldn't access it because it was all password-ed.

"We can find out where we are," she shot Rory a look, "from this, yeah? Look at the manufacturing date or something?"

"Have you been watching my Star Trek DVD again?" asked Rory, mildly annoyed.

"What can I say? Felt like I should know some sci-fi, now that I'm in one."

"Well," the Doctor answered eventually, "we should be able to, _but_," he spun in a circle, gesturing around him, "it wouldn't answer the other question."

"Which is?" Amy asked.

"Where is everybody?" Rory supplied, slightly unsurely.

"Well done Rory!" the Doctor grinned in an about-turn of his earlier mood. "we'll make a proper adventurer of you yet." He started tapping instructions into the screen Amy had found. "No life signs apart from us onboard this...ship – no, this _mole_, sorry."

"Mole?"asked Rory. "What, like the Thunderbirds or something?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Well, not really. This is a mining mole."

"Which _is..._" Amy made an exasperated 'go on' gesture with her hand. The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her, straightened and twiddled his bowtie.

"It basically drives around underground scanning for anything worth mining. They're not very big – this is probably the only room – but if it's stationary, which it is – "

"Then some kind of, um, mining...station is nearby?"

"Brilliant, Rory! You're on a roll."

"So how do we get to it?" asked Amy, excited. "Space lift? Short-range teleport?"

The Doctor just pointed his sonic screwdriver behind her, and with a small hissing noise and a clunk, a door slid up.

"Stairs." Said Amy, disappointed.

* * *

The wait outside the melt chamber seemed interminable. The entire crew – those that were awake, anyway – were gathered outside, some chatting excitedly, some pacing. Amer, perhaps in the spirit of mischief, Gedric supposed, had refused to scan the ore and tell its exact weight until it was finished being melted, and they could look at it properly. A bit like not knowing the gender of a baby, he thought dryly, or not opening your presents until Christmas.

Right then he was sitting alone on a bench opposite the door, anxiously tapping his fingers against his thigh. The melt chamber was still whirring away noisily behind the decompression chamber, with Amer sitting on the other side waiting to take the ore away for processing.

Suddenly a loud siren went off, signalling the end of the process. Everyone went very quiet.

Then the door to the chamber opened, and Amer poked his head out. His face was pale.

"Gedric. You need to see this." He looked past him to another member of the crew. "Banto, go and get Mari for me will you?" Banto, the youngest member of the crew, frowned but nodded and turned away. "Quickly!" Amer called after him, then stepped aside to let Gedric pass.

The decompression chamber was deactivated now melting had finished, and they went though the doorway into the control room.

"What's going on, Amer?" Gedric was worried now – he didn't think anything had gone wrong with the extraction, everything had looked normal; it was just that...well, what did Tamman know? He didn't even work on the drill.

Amer didn't reply, just led him to the end of the control room and gestured at the viewing panel. It was a small, round porthole, though which Gedric could see inside the melt chamber. He looked and what he saw made all the blood in his body feel like ice.

"Oh my _God._"

Lying on the floor of the chamber, completely still, was a woman.


	2. Awake

**Author's Note**

**So, chapter two! A bit of build up, here, and a few more characters to introduce properly. Also some action to liven things up a little. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, I had to say. I've introduced a little 'previously' section at the top, because I think it helps the story flow better over two separate chapters.**

**Have a nice time!**

_Amer didn't reply, just led him to the end of the control room and gestured at the viewing panel. It was a small, round porthole, though which Gedric could see inside the melt chamber. He looked and what he saw made all the blood in his body feel like ice._

"_Oh my God." _

_Lying on the floor of the chamber, completely still, was a woman._

He whipped around, turning to face Amer.

"I swear, I didn't know – when I pulled the ice up – I didn't know – how the hell did she even get _in_ there?"

"No idea." Amer sighed. "why bury someone in the middle of an asteroid in un uninhabited part of space?"

"Do you think – is it even _possible_ – that she was, you know, alive in there? In a cryosleep or something?"

Amer sighed again, and rubbed his eyes slowly with his hand.

"If she _was..._she's definitely dead now. The heat and the pressure inside there...it's why I've asked for Mari. We need an assessment of that woman's body, anything to help us find out who she is and how she got in there."

"God..." Gedric sat down heavily in a chair.

"I certainly don't envy her. Anything organic inside there will have burst and boiled like an egg."

"Don't." Gedric said weakly, the image making him feel slightly ill.

"Sorry." An uncomfortable silence descended.

"What, what is it?" Mari burst suddenly into the room, dark hair flying about, startling both of them. "Banto was running to come and get me for something. Must be serious to wake me up."

"We've, uh..." Amer glanced at Gedric, who clearly wasn't up to explaining. "Well, we've found something in the ice."

"Yes?"

"Or rather, we've found some_one_."

"A person? But that's –"

"Impossible? I know. That's what I thought. And yet, here we are."

"But we're in _deep space_. Nothing's lived out here, has _ever_ lived out here." Mari sounded disbelieving, her eyes wide and dark. She looked frantically at Gedric, still immobile and shaking in his chair. "How can this be possible?"

"Mari," said Amer, voice level and commanding. "I need you to look at the body – anything you can find to identify her-"

"It's a woman?"

"Yes," said Amer, eyeing Mari steadily. "A woman. Anything to identify her, to find out how and _why_ she was in there. Got it?"

"Yes." Mari whispered, nodding. She looks how I feel, thought Gedric. Keeping it together better though. I suppose she is a doctor.

"Good. We'll take the body out through the processing room – I don't want everybody seeing it – to the Medbay. Guro's already gone down there to seal it off from anyone." He looked at them both in warning. "We do this quickly and quietly, no fuss, I don't want a panic on my hands, and I don't want to do explanations until we have some answers. Right, let's go."

Amer leant over and tapped at the controls, opening the door, which cranked open with a loud hissing noise. He ushered Mari through, pulling Gedric up from the chair and pushing him through after her.

"Keep it together, OK?" he growled. "I need level heads right now."

They approached the body slowly. The woman was lying on her side, facing away from them, so they couldn't see her face.

Oh God, Gedric thought suddenly, what if she hasn't got one? He couldn't stop thinking about what Amer had said, about eggs, their shells split open and insides leaking out as they boiled.

Mari knelt down next to the body and set her bag down next to it. Rummaging around in one of the side pockets she pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and took out a folded-up hover stretcher, laying it down carefully next to her.

"Right." She breathed, steadying her nerves. She gently pulled the woman's long hair away from her body, checking any exposed skin for signs on injuries. After a few moments, she turned towards Amer and Gedric, standing off to one side.

"She's definitely dead- there's no pulse, but I can't see any blood anywhere, so I'm guessing all the damage is internal." Gedric let out a breath; no blood, at least. "There's severe bruising all over her body, which is probably to be expected, especially around the torso and face. I can't really tell you much more medically until we get her to the Medbay and I can run full scans."

Amer nodded, considering.

"OK. What about her clothes? Any form of identification?"

"Better to wait until we get the Medbay for that as well. I can only access one side right now."

"Let's go, then." Mari pursed her lips and turned back to the body, picking up the hover stretcher. She set the control on it, and carefully places it on the woman's back, between the shoulder blades, before picking up her bag and backing away.

The stretcher unfolded, lines of light extending from the chunky disc, encompassing the whole body, which slowly levitated into the air about four feet of the ground. The woman's body inside was still in exactly the same position, undisturbed.

"Good, isn't it?" Mari murmured. "Developed for spinal injuries." Sighing, she shook her head and turned towards Amer, who was opening the plate metal door. When it finally cranked open, the four of them – Mari, Gedric, Amer and the glowing body, stepped out into the dark beyond.

* * *

Despite the amount of running she was used to doing, Amy was decidedly out of breath by the time they reached the top of the staircase. They had been climbing for a solid ten minutes, up and up and up, in dizzying spirals. After a moment of two leaning against the nearest wall, she looked around her.

They had emerged into some kind of corridor, like the mole beneath, outfitted with brushed metal walls and blue lighting, which stretched away in either direction.

"Still isn't anybody around," Rory said, panting a little. "How come it's so quiet? Thought it would be a bit busier up here."

"Me too." Said Amy. "I was _really _hoping for a nice cup of tea at the end of that walk."

"Oh cheer up, Ponds!" the Doctor was his usual buoyant self, and Amy noted sourly, not at all out of breath. Stupid Time Lord lungs. "I've picked up unusual energy readings!"

"When?" Amy asked. "We've been climbing the stairs for the last ten minutes."

"Oh, when we were down in the mole. Did a quick scan on the screwdriver – new setting."

"And that's a good thing?" said Rory, disbelievingly.

"It's excellent! All nice and exciting, don't you think, Pond?" This was addressed to Amy. "Aren't you excited? Big fat weird energy signature, middle of a 31st century laser mining expedition –"

"So it _is_ the future!"

"Yes, Rory. The future. Or the past. Or...the present. It's subjective." He waved a hand airily. "But come on, we've got investigating to do!"

He clapped them both on the back, and the married couple shared a look before following him down the corridor. They turned a corner –

"Who the _hell_ are _you?"_ A large, beefy man – who looks a bit like Jeff, Amy thought – was pointing an equally large, beefy gun at them.

"Oh, don't worry about us. We're just here to –" he rummaged around in his pocket, "do a quick inspection. You know, check everything is working OK, nothing wrong with the machinery. Part of the warranty service." The Doctor treated the man to his most charming smile. "Here's our identification." He held out the psychic paper.

The man took it and looked at them suspiciously.

"Alright," he said. "But you're going to have to wait in here for my boss."

"No, it's alright." Argued the Doctor. "We can just get on with it by ourselves. We won't get in your way or anything, we're very quiet, aren't we, Rory?"

Rory just looked at him stonily.

"See? Quiet as a mouse." He smiled at the man. "What was your name again?"

"Guro." He lifted his chin, looking even more wary than before.

"Right then, Guro, we'll just be off..."

"No," said Guro, blocking his way with a muscled arm, clearly having made his decision. "You're waiting for my boss." He glared at the group in front of him, levelling the gun at them. Amy rolled her eyes.

"Alright, alright, we'll come with you." She said exasperatedly. "But please can we have something to drink?"

"Fine," said the large man suspiciously. "In here, please." He directed them through another sliding door into a small, dark room, pushing Rory in last with the butt of his gun, before sealing them in.

"Great." Said Rory. "From one cupboard to another."

"Hang on a minute." Mumbled the Doctor, somewhere in the dark. "I'm just...there we are!" The room was suddenly illuminated with bright white lights. "Let there be light!"

Amy parked herself on a padded bench on the far side of the room and folded her arms.

"So what was so interesting about theses energy readings that you got us locked in a cupboard?"

"_I_ didn't lock us in a cupboard. That man did." The Doctor said, affronted.

"Doctor." Amy groaned, leaning her head back. The Doctor sat down quietly next to her.

"Something on this base is putting out massive amounts of artron energy, enough to get the TARDIS to take notice and bring us here."

"What's artron energy?" asked Rory, who was leaning against the door.

"It's this stuff you pick up when you travel in time." The Doctor frowned, trying to explain. "Like background radiation. It's what made River into what she is, what gave her the ability to regenerate." Rory blinked and looked at the floor uncomfortably. "_Usually..._it's harmless. But the only thing with the amount of artron energy this thing is putting out is the TARDIS, or a rift."

"Rift?"

"A...tear in space-time. But it's not a TARDIS, or a rift, or anything I can recognise."

"So the question is," said Amy slowly. "What is it?"

"Exactly," said the Doctor. "because whatever it is, I don't want some 31st century mining corporation digging it up and using it for fuel. It could be dangerous."

"So the plan is to, what, poke around the base a bit, find the thing, find out how dangerous it is, and if necessary blow it up?" Rory summarised.

"Pretty much, yeah." The Doctor put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall.

"Great."

* * *

The walk to the Medbay was long and quiet. Gedric could feel a cold feeling settling in his stomach as he watched the body float along in front of him. Suddenly a communicator crackled into life.

"Sir, we have visitors in Sector 6." It was Guro's voice. Amer frowned, picking up his communicator to respond.

"Visitors?"

"Said they were an inspection crew. I've put them in a room out of the way."

"Good," said Amer. "Keep them there for now until we've got this in the Medbay. We'll deal with them after."

"Alright, sir."

By now they had reached the southern end of the Medbay, and Mari swiped her hand over the door panel to open it. She took out the controls for the stretcher and carefully guided it over to one of examining tables in the corner.

The body, still bound in its levitation field, rotated slowly and lowered on to the table, lying flat on its back. Gedric could see the woman better now – long vivid red hair, pale skin contrasting strikingly with the blue-black bruising all over her body.

"If you'd like to take a seat," said Mari, gesturing to some chairs set against the wall. Gedric saw his opportunity, and turned to Amer.

"Actually, I was wondering if I could go now..." The older man shook his head.

"No, I need you here." Gedric looked uncomfortably at the body on the table.

"I really don't do well with blood or anything..."

"My office is a few doors down," Mari supplied. "You could wait there maybe." Amer nodded his approval.

"Go sit out there – I'll come and get you when we're done."

Mari reached into a drawer by the table and pulled out a packet of examining gloves and a hair tie, scraping her back off her face.

"What happened, Amer? I don't know much about engineering, but surely something like a body would detected?" She tore open the packet, and pulled out the gloves, stretching them on over her hands and flexing her fingers.

"I don't know." Amer answered shortly. "I'm hoping the body will help us find out." Mari nodded to herself and turned towards the woman.

The body on the table was wearing what looked like a red embellished tunic and black leggings, with brown boots. Not that it was easy to tell – they were burned and ragged, barely holding together.

Mari started to search through the clothing, trying to find any kind of identification or personal effects. After a minute or two, she gave up, not having found anything at all.

"Right then." She mumbled to herself.

"Haven't found anything?" Amer grumbled from the far side of the room, where he had set himself down on a chair.

"No, not yet." Mari sighed. "It's going to take a bit longer than that, I'm afraid. But I'm going to have to take her clothes off now." She eyed him meaningfully. "To access the body. To be honest, is it really necessary to be...in here? I understand you want to, you know, know as soon as anything comes to light, but I'm slightly uncomfortable with you..._watching._ And we don't know what her wishes would have been on the matter."

"Look, this is _my_ station. I can't have any information leaks –"

"You know I wouldn't do that, sir."

"I'm sure." He glared at her. "But it's the principal of the thing. This situation, this," he gestures at the body "_casualty_, is my responsibility. So I'm staying. Make her decent, by all means, respect what she might have wanted, but I am staying." He eyed her beadily, then pursed his lips and left the room to find Gedric.

Mari steadied herself with a long breath. She hadn't had to do an autopsy in a long time, since her training, in fact, and the argument with the boss hadn't helped her nerves. Anyway, she had never really liked this particular part of medicine – she had joined up to help people, not poke around in their dead bodies.

Rolling up her sleeves, she picked up the cutter to do away with the clothes. The cutter looked a little like what a 21st century human would call a vegetable peeler – a y-shaped device, but instead of a blade there was a laser beam capable of cutting through inch-thick glass.

The doctor held up the edge of the woman tunic, and started to cut up its length until it was hanging open on the woman's chest.

Five minutes later she'd removed the rest of the clothing, which was now in the bin, and had cleaned and covered the body respectfully with a white sheet. She turned back to her control interface and pressed on the intercom button.

"Amer, you can come back in now, if you need to."

Sure enough, the chief engineer did indeed return, not willing to be absent for the revealing of any information that would explain why a body had tuned up buried in an asteroid. Mari gave him an almost disapproving glance when he came through the door, gesturing at the chair.

She didn't really understand his motives for being so interested – was he genuinely concerned at to why this had happened, or was it just self-interest, trying to prevent a scandal?

Shaking her head, she picked up a handheld scanner and started running it over the woman's skin, checking for internal injuries.

The scanner beeped, and she glanced up at the monitor it was linked to. Just as she had thought, the organs had undergone massive internal haemorrhaging – then, abruptly, the readings changed. Everything was normal. Then, back again, settling on the first reading. Mari stared at it for a second, confused, but it seemed to have been just a blip.

"You've never done that to me before..." she murmured to herself.

"Something wrong, Dr O'Neal?"

Mari gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Nothing at all, sir. But it's as I thought – her internal organs are just...ruined."

"Probably from the pressure inside the chamber. Any chance at a species identification? She looks human enough, but she could be a variant."

"No," said Mari, looking back at the monitor. "As I said, her organs are wrecked, but from what I can tell she's phenotype pure human. I can do DNA in a minute, but I want to have a better look at her insides first."

"Will that help to give a time of death? Gedric was worried about her being in a cryosleep beforehand."

"It might do, yes. Once I'm inside I can take tissue and blood samples, to look for cryoprotectants and such like-"

"Cryoprotectants?"

"Chemicals used during stasis. If there are any, then we know she wasn't just murdered, and what kind they use could help me look for a time period."

"Couldn't you use decay dating for that?" Mari shook her head.

"No. When you're in space, you're exposed to all kinds of radiation you wouldn't be usually –it's one of my jobs to do routine checks every year or so during everyone's medical exams. Normally we're protected by a planet's atmosphere or a spaceship's hull, but out here on an asteroid..."

"It could interfere with the dating."

"Yeah, basically." Mari turned back to her monitor, studying the best point to take a sample from. The chest looked the best bet, close to the heart. She selected the laser scalpel from the pull-out metal tray at the work station, as well as a pair of forceps and a large bowl.

"You'll likely want to turn away for this part." She told Amer. "It's not pretty."

He just gave a her a look which said 'I'm not going to miss anything, not matter how ugly.'

"Suit yourself," she sighed. "Right, let's get this started..."

She gently parted the sheet, exposing the pale, bruised skin of the woman's stomach and chest.

Mari looked at the skin for a moment, saddened by the thought of this woman's death – what had happened to her? Who was she? What had she done, that somebody had imprisoned her deep inside an asteroid in a dead part of space?

She shook her head to clear it, and carefully turned on the scalpel, adjusting it down to a fine beam. Reminding herself to keep her hands and breathing steady, she lowered it to the woman's skin.

Nothing happened.

Mari tried again, gliding the beam down the middle of the woman's ribcage.

Again, nothing.

Mari frowned at the scalpel, checked that the safety was disengaged – the red colour of the beam was only for safety, the real laser couldn't be seen – but it was.

And then monitor behind her went _wild_. It started bleeping and flashing, the readings fluctuating and an incredible rate, screaming out alerts. Mari dropped the scalpel in shock, which sliced off a corner of the table like it was soft butter.

"What the _hell?"_ she tuned to the work station, swing the monitor round to face her better, pounding the buttons, trying to make it respond.

"O'Neal?" shouted Amer over the din. "What's going on?"

"I don't know sir, the machinery-"

Mari felt a cold hand grip her forearm. She looked round –

It was the woman, staring at her with dark, dark eyes.

Dr Mari O'Neal screamed.

* * *

At the sound of the cry, the Doctor leapt from his bench, whipping out his sonic screwdriver.

"Trouble?" asked Rory.

"Definitely." Muttered the Doctor, concentrating on getting the door open. "Definitely something not good." The door whooshed open and he charged out of it, swinging round into the corridor with Amy and Rory in tow. The Doctor shoved past Guro with his gun, running full pelt towards the source of the noise, crashing through a pair of doors.

The room was clean a white, brightly lit, clinical. A Medbay? It was empty, but in the next room her could see something, a woman sitting on a table, another on the floor, an older man pulling her to her feet – but then he was being dragged away by a pair of muscled arms, away from the room and back towards the door.

"Please," he said to Guro. "please, whatever it is you've dug up, its dangerous, really dangerous, but I can help, I can help, I'm the Doctor-" Guro reached behind him, and the Doctor felt a cool, icy pain slide down the back of his neck, before slumping to the floor, unconscious.

Amy and Rory rushed in, a second too late.

"What have you done to him?" Amy rushed to the Doctor's side, kneeling by his prone form, only for Guro to swipe her with the same sedative. She collapsed over the body of her friend.

"That's my _wife_, you bastard-" Rory swore, charging forward, but he was thrown to the floor, and his world went dark too.

"I'm going to have to be more thorough this time." Sighed Guro, looking at the unconscious people on the floor, feeling rather sorry for them. "But it was hardly in my job description to lock people up."

He kneeled down next to Amy and the Doctor, carefully lifting the woman off him and laying her gently on the floor. Guro leant over the Doctor, taking the sonic screwdriver out of his hand and stowing it carefully in his own pocket.

He did try to do a search of the man's pockets too, but after pulling out a seemingly endless amount of trivia, decided to simply take the tweed jacket away entirely to save time. Neither the other man, after searching, or the woman seemed to have anything technological on them apart from some kind of rudimentary communicators.

It took a surprising amount of time to drag them back into the make-shift cells – though this time he was careful to separate them into different cupboards and to tie them up. Guro could only imagine the trouble he was in already once Amer figured out that the 'visitors' had escaped their confinement.

But what had caused the scream? He had heard it too, it had made him jump a mile. It had to have been Mari – it hadn't sounded like a man's scream, so it couldn't have been Amer or Gedric – but she was a doctor, it wasn't like she was easily shaken by things, let alone a dead body.

He could go and find out...after all, he had been there when the woman's body had been found.

But, he sighed inwardly, he couldn't picture that going down well with his boss, given the prisoners had already escaped once. He should really stay here and guard them like he was supposed to. Guro sighed, and sat down, gun ready, prepared for a long wait.

**PS. The 'decay dating' mentioned here is exactly the same principle as carbon dating. I've just renamed it, because it could potentially be used on elements other than carbon. **

**I have no idea if being exposed to deep space radiation would affect the dating, but it seemed half-plausible so I put it in. Do tell me, science-y people, if I've got that wrong.**

**Review!**


	3. Energy

**Author's Note**

**We're finally getting to the meat of the story now – sorry about the wait. **** So, some secrets get revealed, some unexpected revelations occur, and the Doctor gets threatened with a surgical instrument.**

**Enjoy!**

Mari jumped back, away from the woman, crashing into the floor. She scrambled back as what had been the body sat up, seeming to look around.

Amer seized her arm, pulling her bodily off the floor and pushing her behind him. He trained his gun on the woman.

"Who are you? Identify yourself!" He barked, but the dark eyes just looked blankly back out of a bruised face.

"I repeat, who are you?" No response.

"Tell me who you are!" Amer shouted. By this point Mari had recovered from the initial shock, and shakily stepped out from behind Amer.

"Can you understand me?" She asked hesitantly. The woman tilted her head, looking straight at her. It was unnerving, Mari thought – those eyes...they looked almost _feral_. "Can you hear me?" she tried again, miming as well.

"What are you doing?" hissed Amer. "Get back, she might be dangerous." The dark gaze swung round to Amer this time, and Mari could see him swallow, re-adjusting his grip on the gun.

"She hasn't done anything yet," Mari said quietly.

"She grabbed you!" Amer retorted, face tight.

"Yes, but she's been locked in solid ice for who knows how long. She's probably just confused! At any rate she doesn't seem able to understand us. Let me _try._" Mari turned back to the woman.

"Can – you – hear – me?" She said clearly, pointing at the woman, then her ear, then her chest. For a long moment, Mari received nothing but a stare. Then, slowly, the woman nodded.

"We don't want to hurt you." She said, taking a step forwards. "We're friends, yes?" Mari smiled encouragingly. "Friends." The woman looked pointedly at the gun Amer was still pointing at her.

"Amer, put the gun down." The older man frowned.

"No."

"Amer," Mari said warningly. "Put it down. It's scaring her."

"In case you've forgotten, O'Neal, I'm _your_ boss, not the other way around."

"And in case _you've_ forgotten," Mari glared at him. "I'm a doctor. You asked me to find out who this woman is, and since she's..." Mari glanced at the woman, still sitting on the table. "...obviously _not_ dead, we can just _ask her._ But that is not being helped by pointing at gun at her, so _put it down._"

Reluctantly, Amer lowered the gun, putting it back in his pocket.

"I hope you're right about this, Dr O'Neal."

Mari let out a long breath – for a moment, she had thought Amer was going to shoot. She turned to face the woman, and slowly, step by step, approached her, until she was standing right by the table.

"Shall I get you some clothes?" she smiled, pulling at her own top. "Clothes?" The woman - I'm going to have do something about finding a name, Mari thought, I can't keep calling her 'the woman' – was, after all, still wrapped in white sheets, and her previous clothes were ruined beyond recovery.

Again, a slow nod was the response.

"Ok." Mari said to herself. "You can have some of mine..." She walked to a cupboard on the far side of the room. She always kept a spare change of clothes in here, just in case – her training had taught her that you never knew when you get covered in vomit, blood or other unpleasant stuff, and consequently it was good to keep clean clothes at hand.

She pulled out at set of underwear, casual black stretchy trousers, a dark long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of boots with socks. Closing the cupboard, Mari looked up at Amer.

"Could you at least turn around, please?" He scowled even more intensely than before, but obeyed.

She handed the clothes over, and steps away, waiting for the woman to get changed. As she did, Mari couldn't help but notice that the bruising over the woman's body had noticeably decreased.

How was she possible? A few minutes ago, she was just a body on the slab, insides scrambled. Now there was a living woman standing before Mari, moving about like she was perfectly healthy. The doctor inside Mari didn't understand how those two facts can coexist.

And the instruments! They had all agreed that the woman was dead, but then that strange flicker, and _then_ the machines, going wild at the point where the woman had seemingly returned from the dead...Almost equally as troubling was the scalpel. It had been turned on, working – Mari could see the hunk of table it had sliced off lying on the ground now – but it had had _no effect whatsoever_ on that woman's skin. How?

* * *

When the Doctor woke up he felt groggy. His limbs felt heavy and warm, and his mouth, he noticed, now had an unpleasant sour taste. Ugh, was this what humans felt like in the morning? No wonder Amy and Rory were always so grumpy when they woke up. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on your view – this wasn't a side effect of sleep, but of the sedative Guro had stabbed him with. Oh, the Doctor noticed, and he's also tied me to a chair. Wonderful.

He looked around him. It was another cupboard – today really is a cupboard-y kind of day, he thought – full of spare medical equipment, cleaning things and a stack of chairs.

"Good thing Harry Houdini once owed me a favour." He muttered to himself, squirming to be free of his bonds. "And I've had plenty of practice in escapology over the years."

Ten unsuccessful minutes later, the Doctor was still tied to his chair, but now with the addition of a pout. He was starting to get seriously bored when Guro entered, followed by an older man, salt-and-pepper haired and imposing. The man pulled a chair of a stack and drew it up opposite the Doctor.

"I'm Amer." He said. "What's your name?"

"The Doctor."

"Just 'the Doctor'?"

"Yes," huffed the Doctor impatiently. "It really is." The older man raised his eyebrows, but seemed satisfied for now.

"Now, would you like to explain why I've caught you trespassing on my station pretending to be an inspection crew? Because that would be great." The Doctor fidgeted in his chair.

"Umm, yes...sorry about that. But, in my defence, I am doing some..._inspecting_ here I suppose. And your man-" he nodded at Guro, standing at the back, "-locked me and my friends up as soon as he found us! That's just _rude._"

"You were trespassing." Amer countered.

"Maybe. Where are my friends, anyway?" The older man leant back in his chair, raising an eyebrow.

"Safe enough, don't worry. They're unharmed, for the moment. But you still haven't told me why you're here in the first place."

The Doctor looked the man in the eye.

"Look, we're just travellers, honestly, we're trying to help. My...ship...picked up something, something in this base, potentially dangerous. I'm doing you a favour, I'm just trying to find out what it is and how to deal with it."

"Dangerous, you say?"

"_Yes_, now let me go, please."

"Why should I believe you? For all I know you could be industrial espionage, with a name like 'the Doctor'. Certainly sounds like a codename. Not a very good one, though."

The Doctor frowned, looking down at his tweed and bowtie.

"Really? I don't think I really look very 'espionage'." The old man snorted.

"You're not wrong there."

"Look, the bow tie is _cool_. But please, you have to listen to me. You've dug something up, yes? And not like you usually dig up. But you don't know what you're dealing with, please, it's dangerous. Let me help – I'm clever, _really_ clever. I can help."

Amer, opposite from him in the chair, goes suddenly still.

"How do you know about that?" He eyes the Doctor warily.

"I told you, I'm clever. And trust me, you're out of your depth, so let me help you."

For a long moment Amer just looked at him, evaluating, a long calculating gaze.

"How do I know I can trust you? You say that you're so clever; tell me what you know now, and I'll consider letting you and your friends go. A fair enough trade." The Doctor shook his head violently.

"You _still_ don't understand. I can't-"

"If I don't _understand,_ Doctor, then explain." The older looking man smiled grimly, almost triumphant.

"The place I got to before, it was a Medbay, right?" asked the Doctor, gauging Amer's reaction. "Which makes sense. Most secure place in the station, right? I mean, you dig up something weird, you don't want the world to know about it, and a Medbay will have quarantine locks on all the doors. Stop any nasty radiation or something getting out –"

"Not really." Amer interrupted. "We could have used the escape pod for that."

The Doctor was concentrating, though, and didn't seem to hear him. "-bad news is, this isn't the kind of radiation you can stop, even with exoglass, and your excavation is giving off so much that it caught the attention of my ship, which means that it's either really old, really powerful or really unstable. Or if we're lucky, all three."

"What do you mean, radiation?" said the station commander, alarmed.

"Oh, nothing to particularly worry you humans _yet._ Well, it was nothing to worry about a while ago. It might be now." Says the Doctor nonchalantly.

"Is it dangerous, then? What kind of radiation is it?" The Doctor looked Amer up and down, stares at him for a long moment, then turns to face him properly.

"When you travel in time – that's what I am, by the way, a time traveller –"

"Really?" Amer snorted. "You're really a time traveller?"

"Yes," snapped the Doctor, "I am. Anyway, when you travel through the vortex, you pick up this energy, like radiation, called artron energy. Its part of how my ship works, probably why she noticed it. It's not dangerous to humans; it can actually be beneficial, but only in small doses. Whatever you've dug up, it's giving out huge amounts, enough to be seriously dangerous, and the longer it's here, the more damage it's doing to you."

"Right. And you can prove this, can you?"

"Yes. Because in the twenty minutes I've been talking to you, you've started going gray."

"What?"

"Seriously, look at your hair." Amer turned to a mirror on the wall, combed through his hair with his fingers. The Doctor watches, dark-eyed, behind him."You have more grey in it now than you did half an hour ago. You've been aged, because that's what artron energy is, it's time energy, too much of it and you get aged to death." The Doctor looked serious and sad. "Trust me; I've known people it's happened to. And if you don't let me help you, it's going to happen to everyone on this station."

Amer blinked at himself in the mirror. His face was white, his eyes staring, but the Doctor could sense that the mind behind the face was ticking away, calculating what he had said. The Doctor had met thousands, more than thousands, of people in his time, and he counted himself a good judge of character, among other things. This man was certainly steely, wary of the Doctor, and seemed a pragmatic type. He hadn't seemed particularly scared by what the Doctor had said. What he did next, though, would show another level of his personality entirely.

Suddenly he whipped round, crouching in front of the Doctor, staring him right in the eye.

"You get _one chance_ to look at this, alright?" He gestured for Guro, still standing in the corner, to untie the prisoner.

"What about my friends?" the Doctor challenged. Amer shook his head.

"They stay where they are, as insurance. So you better give me something useful, or none of you will be going anywhere." He turned towards the door and started to walk off.

"You can't just..._ransom_ them." Amer turned back to the Doctor

"I just did. Would you prefer to get back in the chair?" The Doctor folded his arms.

"Fine. But you better let them go after. Unharmed."

"After you've proved you can help, yes. Deal?" Amer held out his hand.

The Doctor took it, shaking it firmly, and grinned a madcap smile.

"Deal." He paused thoughtfully. "One more thing. Can I have my jacket?"

* * *

In light of the potential dangerousness of prisoner, Amer felt that they should have had put the Doctor in handcuffs. Well, at least Guro and his gun had come along with them to the Medbay. Despite this, he didn't feel particularly confident in his decision; after all, he had no idea who this man was, and although Amer had gone on to ask again and again, he had still refused to give his name, or any name. Just 'the Doctor'.

Everything was starting to feel very surreal to him. This morning when he had woken up, he had looked forward to a normal day – but since then he'd found a body in an asteroid, had a break-in, and said body had come back to life, and was now apparently ageing everyone on the station to death. He had no idea what to do apart from find out what the hell he had dug up. The last thing he wanted was to put everyone on this ship in danger by raising something so, so...well, to use a primitive term, _unholy._

They had reached the door now.

"One chance." He reminded the Doctor. "Make it count." Then he opened the door.

Inside, the dead woman was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, staring listlessly at the floor, while Mari was poring over some scan readings at her workstation. Amer walked to the centre of the room, standing directly in front of the woman.

"We dug her up a few hours ago. She was dead when we found her – then she came back to life." He tilts his head and regards her warily. "She can't seem to hear us, though, and she hasn't spoken at all." The woman across from him doesn't even look up at his words, just continuing to gaze at the floor.

The Doctor stares at the woman too, for a moment, but then span round, his face twisted with anger.

"A _person?_ The thing you dug up was a _person?_ You didn't tell me this!" Amer frowned and tugged his sleeve out of the Doctor's grip, cold-faced.

"Who is this?" said a quiet, female voice. The Doctor turned, his ire fading for a moment, to see a woman with caramel skin and voluminous dark hair approaching him. She looked curiously at her commander, and coolly at the newcomer, suspicious. Amer pursed his lips, his face working.

"This is our medic." Amer informed the Doctor. "She's been looking after our...patient."

"We had what looked like a break in earlier, O'Neal. This man-" he jerked his thumb at the Doctor. "says he might be able to help."

"Can you?" Mari looked at the Doctor again. He nodded to her.

"Probably. Maybe. I'll have a go! Try my best." He looked over at the woman in the corner, her face still hidden from view. "What's her name?"

"I don't know; I can't get her to communicate. I – I'm calling her Fire. After the hair." The man smiled almost like he was proud of her.

"It's a good name." He could see why she chose it, as well. He'd always wanted to be ginger (even the Dream Lord noted that he 'had a thing for redheads') but the woman's hair was even brighter than Amy's – a rich, deep shade of red that bordered on unnatural, like it had been enhanced by a computer. Flame red.

" It seemed silly to just keep referring to her as 'the patient'." Mari glanced over at Amer. "I mean I'm not 'the doctor', after all."

"No," agreed the man in tweed, adjusting his bowtie with a smile. "I am." At Mari's sceptical look, he clarified. "That's my name – just call me the Doctor. Everyone else does."

"The Doctor."

"Nice to meet you."

She sighed. "So, what can you do?"

"Umm," he said, "I might have...hang on a second..." he rummaged around in his pockets, looking for something, before pulling out a chunky metal disc about the same size as a digestive biscuit. "Here we are!" He grinned.

"What is it?" asked Mari curiously, frowning at the object.

"A telepathic translator. I attach it to her, and anything I say to her will be directly translated in her brain." He grinned again, throwing it in the air and catching it. "Good, isn't it?"

Privately, Mari thought that they don't even know if the woman _can_ hear. But right now she couldn't rely on her own instruments to tell her the truth, and if this man could do something to help...

"If it will help." With effort, she smiled at the Doctor, hopefully not too nervously. The man in the bowtie span and headed towards the woman, still sitting quietly in the corner, head down.

The Doctor slowly knelt down in front of the woman, so that he was at eye level with her. She was, admitted the Doctor, quite striking. Symmetrical, patrician features; almond shaped eyes, straight nose and full mouth. To Amy or Rory, she might look almost Eastern European, he supposed. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, leaning forward to clip the translator on her. She stiffened, dark eyes staring at him, but didn't resist as he attached the small disc to the collar of her borrowed top.

"Right then," he murmured, settling back on his haunches. "I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"

He thought for a moment there was some spark of recognition, but then it was gone, replaced with just a blank stare. Puzzled, he tried again.

"Hello. Are you alright?" _Nothing_.

"I told you," said Mari. "I can't get her to communicate."

"Yeah," mumbled the Doctor. "But this is _telepathic_, this tech, it works on everybody..." he leant forward and took the translator back, giving another gentle smile. "and it isn't broken, so..." he shook it next to his ear. "Her mental shields must be _incredibly_ strong. _Ridiculously_ strong." He looked up at Mari. "Why?" She just shrugged.

"Protection, maybe? If she didn't know what she was going to find when she got out..." The Doctor gave Mari a strange look.

"That...makes sense." HE smiled. "Well done."

"Doctor," said Amer, voice urgent. "That energy..." The Doctor nodded, face serious again.

"Right! Yes. Alright then." He took a deep breath. "Been a while since I've done this..." He steadied himself, then reached out his hands, placing them on the woman's face, with the tips of his fingers resting on her temples.

"What are you doing?" asked Mari, almost nervous.

"The translator isn't working, I need to make direct contact..." he murmured, eyes closing beneath a frown. "And I need her co-operation to take this energy out of her..."

Mari was starting to feel that she was missing something. The man didn't seem to be diagnosing the patient, despite claiming to be a Doctor; and Amer's expression, worry lines creasing his face, was starting to make her anxious.

"Amer, what's going on? What energy?" Amer turned his face towards her, eyes still warily fixed on the man in tweed.

"There's some kind or energy, or radiation, O'Neal. That this girl is emitting..."

"_Radiation?"_ hissed Mari. "And you didn't think to mention this to me earlier? We need to put on hazmat suits, Amer, we're standing around exposed –"

"Ssshhh!" The Doctor whispered, silencing them. "I'm concentrating!" He pressed his lips together and shifted his grip on the woman. Suddenly his frown cleared – but then, almost too fast to see, the woman threw him off, sending him sprawling to the floor with a crash.

She jumped to her feet, eyes wide, pulling something small and silver out of her pocket. Standing over the Doctor like a prize-fighter, she levelled the device at him, and Mari realized, with a cold rush - it was her laser scalpel.


	4. Names

**Author's Note**

**So...the big reveal. **

**Enough said, really. Read on!**

Amer lurched forward to help, but Mari threw out an arm across his chest, stopping him in his tracks. The Doctor was still on the floor, staring at the woman who was pointing a silver tube at him like it's a _weapon_.

"Hey," he said, forgetting for a moment the communication issue, "Put that down." She tilted her head to one side, watching him with cold, furious eyes. Unlike earlier, there was a definite conscious, comprehending presence behind those eyes now – and the Doctor realized that she _could_ understand him.

"Put it down." He said again, slowly. In response, she clicked the side of the device, disengaging the safety. Mari moaned quietly.

"That's my scalpel." She whispered, pained. The Doctor swallowed heavily.

"Oh? Really?" Still lying in a precarious position, he raised his hands into the air in a gesture of surrender.

"No." The woman spat in Russian. To the side, Amer and Mari looked at each other, confused.

"Really, put it down .Because," the Doctor said "because, _because_, I understand, yes? You're feeling very confused right now. You've been buried for who-knows-how –many-years, and you've woken up and I tried something that was _quite_ ill-advised." He went for a tentative smile. "Even by my standards, and I'm very sorry for that. But you don't need to hurt anyone."

"Why not? Why should I not execute you right now?" she hissed. Her voice shook with anger.

"You don't need to hurt anyone." reiterated the Doctor steadily, before his curiosity got the better of him. "Why, what have I done?" She _recognised _him. How was that possible? She had been buried for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years!

To his surprise, he saw unshed tears begin to form in her eyes, shining brightly in the clinical white lights. Refusing to break eye contact, she tightened her grip on the scalpel, and the Doctor flinched slightly.

Oh, there was an almost endless list of things he could have done, thought the Doctor. He had been travelling for hundreds and hundreds of years now, around the universe; and although he never tried to hurt anyone, people got caught in the crossfire. As Margaret the Slitheen had put it, his happy-go-luck life left devastation in its wake. And he never stayed long enough to see it.

But her choice of words: _execute_. Like the death penalty, like capital punishment, like for a crime. She sounded almost like one of the Silence. But no, she couldn't be part of the silence. The way this girl was acting – emotional, shaky, using opportunistic weapons. It had none of the detailed, tactical planning her associated with Kovarian and her cult, and this girl herself didn't have the air of a Silence-trained assassin. None of that cool, assured bravado that he'd expect. With the way she was acting, this was _personal._

So what crime had he committed against this girl?

With the Doctor's words, she gained a strange, faraway look to her, like she was trying to remember something that had happened a long, long time ago. Almost nostalgic. Wistful. Bittersweet.

"Dead, all of them," she whispered. The Doctor frowned.

And then she screamed, a bloodcurdling cry, clutching her head, and the scalpel clattered harmlessly to the floor. The Doctor leapt to his feet to help the girl, but she flinched away from his presence like he was poison.

"Please!" he cried. "You're saturated with artron energy, you have to let me take it out or it's going to kill you!" He stared desperately at her, pleading with her to understand.

"What?" she said, face streaked with tears.

"Please," he asked. "It's already started to affect the crew." She stared at him bewildered, before looking up at Amer and Dr O'Neal, squinting through the pain. Amer gazed back steadily, eyeing her as though she were a dangerous wild animal.

The Doctor's mind raced. She must have recognised him by the telepathic contact, he thought, because she hadn't reacted right away when she'd first seen his face. Must have sensed from the nature of his mind that he was a Time Lord – and from there, it wasn't that hard to identify him as the Doctor. How she had managed to do that without allowing him access to _her_ mind he didn't yet understand. That was a level of telepathic ability far too advanced for a human of this time period.

Also interesting was the fact she had spoken in 18th century Russian. Yet inexplicably knew how to work a laser scalpel to potentially behead someone. Added to that; to keep someone embedded in an asteroid without killing them required technology developed in at least the early 25th century. Hmm.

So...mental abilities from after the 49th century. Technological abilities from the 25th _and_ 31st. And language from the 18th. This woman, whoever she was, _had_ to be a time traveller. Was that how she'd been exposed to artron energy?

She cried out again, falling to the floor, clutching at the wall to steady her. The Doctor knelt beside her, eyes frantic and worried.

"You have to let me into your mind!" he implored. "I can use the link to my ship to get rid of the energy, but you have to trust me!"

"I _do not_ trust _you._" She spat out. "And you are certainly not getting into my head." The Doctor reached out a hand to steady her as she fell sideways, but she flinched away from his touch. He could only watch helplessly as her face became as white as snow, as her hands shook incessantly and her pupils dilated, making her eyes even darker than before. "My earring." She panted.

"Earring?" He frowned in confusion. She nodded, eyes closed, beads of sweat forming on her pale forehead.

"It's a – it can hold the artron energy... where is it?" And more mysterious still – an earring that could hold artron energy? Well, presumably it was something _disguised _as an earring, but still...who owned something like that? That was technology that bordered on Time Lord advanced. It seemed like the kind of casually dangerous artefact that River might carry around. The Doctor looks up at Mari, but she just shrugged helplessly.

"I didn't see any earring." She said. "I'm sorry."

"Of course not," sighed the dying woman, turning her face into the wall. "It had a perception filter around it." She stares at the Doctor, and it took a moment for him to realise what she was asking.

"Mari," he said, springing upwards, "did she have anything on her when you brought her here? Anything at all?" Confused, she opened her mouth to speak but just shrugged instead.

"I – she had clothes, but they were ruined, I put them in the bin. I didn't see any earrings."

"Get me them – everything." He said urgently. Mari ran over to the other side of the room, picks up the plain white plastic bin and runs back again. The Doctor seized the bin, emptying it over the floor and getting down on his hands and knees to search through the rubbish. It's not dignified, but oh well.

"Oh come on, come on..." he pawed frantically through the pile, touching every item before throwing it away, and he was getting to the bottom of the pile when he picked up that looked like a magnetic pin that Mari used to hold bandages together.

"But that's a pin!" she exclaimed. The Doctor flashed a grin.

"Is it? Look again." She blinked hard as the pin was suddenly replaced by a teardrop-shaped earring the size of her fingernail, made out of what looked like sold diamond.

"That's how a perception filter works," said the Doctor, moving over to the woman. "It makes you not notice it, or think it's something else, or forget about it as soon as you've seen it." He pressed the earring into the red-haired girls limp hand. "Here." He whispers. She pressed her lips together in what might have been something close to a smile, and closed her eyes.

"You might want to stand back." She murmured. With a last effort, she concentrated as hard as she could; her forehead wrinkling with the effort, but slowly, slowly...the earring started to glow. Golden strings of light faded into existence around it in a bubble, surrounding it like a magnetic field, and the light got brighter and brighter, until all the Doctor could see is a shining bubble of radiance around the girl's hand.

"Get back!" He shouted to Amer and Mari, waving for them to move away. They both sensibly decided to make a break for it, leaving the Doctor alone, hand raised to his face trying to squint into the light.

The brightness bleached out everything, so bright that even he had to close his eyes against it, and only the silhouette of the woman holding it remained. The bubble swelled to the size of a football, then a beach ball, then larger, before, with a tremendous muffled _boom,_ it burst, scattering glowing gold sparks all over the room.

For a moment, nothing happened, and the only sound in the room was that of deep, steady breathing and the gentle humming of machinery. Slowly the woman pulled herself to her feet, dusting off the front of her trousers, shimmering particles of gold still clinging to her hair and skin. The Doctor looked at her with wary, curious eyes.

"Who are you?" he wondered. She didn't give a response, instead just folding the earring up inside her hand.

"Actually," he said. "Can I have a look at that? Thanks." He reached forward before she had a chance to answer, grabbing her hand, but he missed slightly and ended up grabbing her wrist instead. Narrowing her eyes, she closed her hand tightly into a fist, refusing to let him look at the earring. But that wasn't what he was interested in now.

He could feel her pulse.

Racing – well, you'd expect it to be. But way too fast for a human.

She had _two hearts._ The Doctor told himself to stop, to not burden himself with this sudden, irrational hope. After all, there are quite a few humanoid bipeds with binary vascular systems. The Appalaluchians, for example.

Then he sees what looks for a moment like some of the artron residue on her arm. But it's too...regular to be that. It's a marking of some kind, like a tattoo. Curiosity and a lack of respect for personal space get the better of him, and he pushed the sleeve of her dark t-shirt up her arm to get a better look. She froze in his grasp, eyes boring into the top of his head. The Doctor, too, was similarly still. His entire body had gone rigid. Hope and fear, mixed into one, poured like ice through his spine.

The markings were in _Gallifreyan_. Interlocking circles and lines formed a pattern that swirled, glowing faintly gold against her skin, up her arm, beyond the hem of her sleeve. He stepped back, shaking his head vehemently.

"No – _no._ You aren't – _you can't be."_ There was an inscrutable look in the woman's dark eyes when she looked at him, but a gentleness on her face that was not there before.

"I am." She said simply _(in Gallifreyan!). _Oh, he so _wanted_ to believe her, but he just didn't have it in him to believe that the universe was ever this kind. It just wasn't true.

"No," he denied. "You're not. You're Silence or something, god knows what, designed to trick me into thinking that you're– you won't fool me." He laughed bitterly. "No."

"I can prove it." She said. He stared at her, face thunderous, eyes shining with tears. He couldn't _bear_ it, not again, not if it wasn't true. She unclenched her hand, exposing the diamond earring lying on her palm.

"It's not a diamond." She explained. "It can store artron energy," and indeed, there was just a hint, a speck, of gold encased in the centre. "A diamond couldn't do that. Look again," she said gently. "You know what it is. You're clever, if nothing else." He just couldn't help himself but lean closer to it, closer to that almost tangible hope...

"It's a white point star." He said weakly. She nodded, solemnly.

"Yes."

"Are you..." he squeezed his eyes shut. "You're a Time Lady, aren't you?"

* * *

There was no other possible explanation. White point stars could only ever be found of Gallifrey; and they couldn't be replicated, not by the Silence, not by anybody. And given that _his_ one was sitting in his old jacket's pocket in shards – it couldn't be the same one.

"Do I know you?" he asked, almost afraid to know the answer. His voice suddenly felt like it had died in his throat. "Romana? _Susan_?" he whispered, eyes searching the woman's face, desperately looking for some kind of resemblance. Her eyes shone with tears again, but she shook her head.

"No – no. You don't – didn't – know me." Her mouth twisted into a small, bitter smile, and the Doctor couldn't help but feel a terrible rush of disappointment.

It was wonderful, of course it was, that _any_ Time Lords had survived. But for a second, he had really hoped it had been one of _them..._ but that wasfoolish. Susan had died early on in the war, fighting far away from any chance of help; an outpost on a deserted, unnamed world. Romana had perished in the final invasion, brave until the last, deposed but still using every ounce of what power she had to fight back.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"A bit personal, don't you think?" she said, half-mockingly.

"Alright then, what do you call yourself?" She sighed, looking at the ground and scuffing the toe of her shoe against it.

"I never got round to choosing," she admitted finally. "Never found the right name. And..." she paused and shook her head, anger and sorrow returning. "I don't want to use the one I had at the Academy anymore. I'm not that person." Her face hardened. "And they're all _dead_, so..."

The Doctor winced.

"I'll have to use one, just for temporary purposes, though." She continued, musing out loud. "What did that woman call me? She had a name for me, didn't she. Kept repeating something at me."

"Fire." He replied, smiling a little as her looked at her hair. "I thought it was a good name."

"Oh? Did you? " She arched an eyebrow. "Ironic. Well, I suppose it'll do. Look at me, being named by a human." She muttered, making a face.

"Human's aren't _that_ bad, you know." He protested. "Some of my best friends are humans." She chuckled dryly.

"Yes, I know _that._ It was the scandal of the decade. Well, multiple decades – but then...multiple scandals." She pressed her lips together. "Personally I don't really see the attraction."

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"_I_ don't see anything wrong with humans." A Scottish voice stated from behind them.

"Ponds!" the Doctor cried, delighted, spinning around. "There you are." Amy and Rory entered the room, with Amer and Mari and another man following closely behind. Amer's hand was resting on his gun, ready for the slightest hint of trouble.

"_You_ left us locked up in a cupboard." Amy accused, putting her hand on her hip and pointing a finger at him. The Doctor treated her to his most innocent-looking grin, which Amy just snorted at.

"Which is the second time today, actually." Rory seconded, appearing behind his wife.

"So," Amy said, nodding her head at Fire. "You going to introduce us?" The smile slid off the Doctor's face.

"Yes, yes, of course." He murmured. He gestured to Fire, who was standing looking at the two humans imperiously with folded arms.

"This is Fire. She's...she's a Time Lady." He finished breathlessly. Amy gawped at him.

"Doctor..." she said slowly. "You're _sure_?" She looked from him to the woman behind him. "_Absolutely _sure?"

The Doctor swallowed.

"I am _still here_." Fire unfolded her arms and strode up to Amy, looking her dead in the eye. Not to be intimidated, the Scottish redhead drew herself up to her fairly impressive full height and met her gaze, which prompted a small smirk from Fire.

Amy's impression was of an athletically built woman, mid-twenties, reasonably tall with long, almost preternaturally red hair, even under the flat white light of the Medbay. With her coolly distant demeanour and classical face, she looked almost like a woman in a painting, Amy thought.

"Interesting. Your name is?" The Doctor, perhaps sensing the tension, leapt to do introductions.

"This is – "

"Amy." Amy interrupted. She gestured to Rory behind her. "And this is my husband, Rory." Fire gave Rory a sweeping look, almost as if she were inspecting him. Rory half-waved, half-saluted back, having to consciously prevent himself from standing at attention like the soldier he used to be.

Fire turned to the Doctor, catching him staring at her, and raised a dark eyebrow.

"Taking couples hasn't featured in your past behaviour."

"Well, I took Amy along first..." The Doctor started, but then Rory shot him a dark look. "But then I met the lovely _Mr_ Pond, and you can't have one without the other!"

"I'm not _actually_ called that you know. That's not how it works." Rory sighed.

"Yes," said Fire slowly. "Doesn't the female usually adopt part of the male's name?"

"Anyway!" said Amy. "Isn't this getting a little off the topic?"

"Actually," said Amer, who had been momentarily forgotten amidst the introductions, "It is. How do you know this woman, Doctor?"

"What, Pond here?" The Doctor pointed quizzically at Amy. "It's a long story – good one though – "

"No." Replied Amer. "_That_ woman."

"Oh. I don't. Never met her before in my life, apparently." The Doctor said.

"She appears to know you, though." Amer replied.

"Well, I'm quite famous in some parts. _She's_ heard of _me_ before, but we've never met before today."

"Hmm." Amer didn't look particularly satisfied with this, but given that the Doctor had just saved their lives, he was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"I'd like to get going, actually." Fire said. "I don't fancy hanging round here for much longer." She wrinkled her nose at Amer. "No offence."

"Yes!" cried the Doctor. "Crisis averted, lives saved, all in a day's work, now home in time for tea I think." He grinned, rubbing his hands together. "I could _murder_ a jammy dodger right now."

"I don't think you should be murdering anything." Said Fire, voice steely.

"Right." The Doctor's face fell back into serious lines. "Of course. Anyway, like you said, we should be going. Amer, you promised to let me and my friends go."

"So I did – though I would still like to know how you managed to get in here in the first place."

"Ah," grinned the Doctor, "if you want to find out _that_, then you'll want to see my ship."

"What about her?" Mari piped up, nodding at Fire.

"I can take care of myself." She answered a little distractedly. Why was that man staring at her? He was standing behind Mari, a brown-haired youth in his late teens or early twenties. His eyes were fixed on Fire, face as pale as though he seen a ghost, or was about to be sick. Fire frowned.

"Shall we?" said the Doctor, leading everyone towards the doors and striding confidently out into the corridor.

"Doctor!" called Rory. "Do you actually know which way it is?"

**So, a Time Lady, eh? **

**The whole thing about having another Time Lord meeting the Doctor (if we exclude the Master for the sake of the argument), is actually what got me writing this story. **

**I've read quite a few stories with Time Ladies in them, from companion (eg. Rose/Donna) Time Ladies, to resurrections of Susan or Romana, to original characters. And yes, classic fans, I have killed off both of those aforementioned Time Ladies. I like them both, but they won't feature in this story – maybe another day?**

**But getting back to the point - the thing that bugged me when I was reading these stories was that after what seemed like an almost perfunctory paragraph of angst, the said Time Lady reverted back to being all happy and stuff. Neatly avoiding that the Doctor did, in fact, kill his entire species (twice), and the ensuing angsty-stuff that would result from that. So yes, Fire is going to be reasonably angsty in this fic, and yes, she's not going to immediately be best buds with the Doctor. But things shall, as we say, progress.**

**See you around!**

**And review, of course. ;-) Pretty please?**


	5. Tremor

**Author's Note**

**So we find out a bit more about Fire in this chapter, along with the inclusion of added peril...because it wouldn't be a Doctor Who story without a life-threatening situation, would it? **

"How do you know she's a Time Lady, Doctor?" Amy questioned. "She could be, a, a ganger or psychic pollen or part of the Silence of something. How can you be _sure_?"

After convincing the Doctor to let Amer lead them back through the complex corridors of the station, Amy had caught up with the Doctor in the corridor, determined to ask him about what had happened.

"Amy," he replied. "She spoke Gallifreyan to me – there's no way the Silence could know that. It's a dead language. Beside, she's had ample opportunity to kill me-" he stops rather suddenly, then, as though suddenly remembering that she _did _try to kill him.

Amy still felt doubtful, even though she knew that she really should be happy for her friend. It was just that it didn't _feel_ like she completely understood the situation yet, and she suspected that the Doctor didn't either. How had Fire ended up here? How come it had taken so long to find her?

"So, a Time Lady...how about that?" She said, smiling weakly. She was experiencing a worrying sense of déjà vu of that time with House, when the Doctor had thought that he'd found the Corsair.

He'd been so _happy_ then, ecstatic even. Right now he looked anxious, subdued. And Fire, ironically, seemed so _cold_ towards him. Even at that very moment, she'd positioned herself in the group so that she was as far away from the Doctor as possible. But then, thought Amy ruefully, given what had happened to the rest of the Time Lords, who was she to judge?

"Oh, Pond," the Doctor said, eyes soft. "I..."

"What, Doctor?"

"I just never thought this would happen." He said quietly. "Actually finding another Time Lord. I can finally, I don't know, try to make _amends_, try to make things better." His eyes shone, fervent with his desire for redemption. It frightened her. It frightened her that he wanted it so badly. It frightened her what he might do to achieve it. She'd said it before; the Doctor made mistakes when he was emotional.

"Yeah," she said. "Just...be careful, ok?" She hugs him tightly.

"Ok." He whispered back.

Fire watched this exchange with careful eyes. She'd heard plenty about his relationships with humans, from one person in particular, but seeing it in person was something else entirely. More than anything, she felt curious. What attracted him to them, and why this particular era of humans especially?

"So...how do you know about him, then?" she heard a voice, male, from her left. She turned to see the other companion of the Doctor, who had sidled up next to her.

"Oh, gossip, I suppose. He was quite the scandal on Gallifrey, a proper renegade." She replied. Of course, that wasn't quite the whole truth, but there was certainly no need to tell the young man about _that._ It was difficult enough, even for herself, to reconcile that piece of information in the light of what had happened since. "I didn't know him personally."

She gave her best smile to the young man – Rory, wasn't it? –keen to change the subject.

"What about you? How do you know him?" She asked.

"Well, like he said, he knew Amy first, ever since she was a little girl. She went travelling with him later, and he came back to get me...we're friends now."

"And do you enjoy it, the travelling?" Rory paused for a moment before answering.

"Yeah, I suppose so. I get to see things that nobody else in my time get to see, and that's amazing. And Amy _loves_ it, of course."

"Of course." Fire echoed. They walked in silence for a few moments.

"What was Gallifrey like?" asks Rory. "He's never really spoken about it."

Fire's face darkened . Privately she couldn't help but feel that the Doctor no longer had the _right_ to speak about Gallifrey anymore, not after what he had done to it, _to them..._

"It was...beautiful, I suppose. In it's time." She smiled sadly. "It was called 'the Shining World'. I – " It suddenly strikes her that no matter how well she describes it, Rory will never be able to picture _Gallifrey_ in his head. Because it's _gone._ Grief for her family, her world and culture, rose up, threatening to overwhelm her. "I'll never see it again."

Her throat contracted and tears burned in her eyes as she found herself embarrassingly close to crying. _Time Ladies do not cry._ She drew in a deep unsteady breath to calm herself.

"I'm sorry." Rory says in a low voice. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." She says, lifting her chin. "There's nothing you could have done."

Rory wanted to ask if she'll come with them when they reach the TARDIS, but suddenly it feels like that might be prying too deep. After all, he doesn't know her.

He was just about to ask her something else when the entire floor _moved_. There was a deafening shrieking, rumbling, creaking sound like a old wooden door, or thunder, or nails down a chalk board, but multiplied ten thousand times.

The corridor they were in shook violently, and Amy yelped as she was thrown hard into the wall. Rory's arms wind milled frantically as he tried to keep his balance on the shuddering floor. Everyone tried their best to remain upright while everything around them juddered and shook. After a minute or two, the shaking slowly started to fade away, until after a few seconds everything was perfectly still.

"What was _that_?" gasped Amy, getting up from the floor. "An earthquake?"

"It wasn't an earthquake." Said Fire, rolling her shoulder.

"It _felt_ like an earthquake." Amy replied.

"Couldn't be an earthquake," said Fire. "because – "

" - _we're on an asteroid."_ She and the Doctor finished together. They looked at each other in surprise.

"Hey," he whined. "You took the explain-y bit away. That's my bit." She rolled her eyes.

"Really."

"Yes. I like that bit. It's _fun._"

"Fun? We just experienced an unexplained tremor of some magnitude and _you're_ worried because you might not be having enough fun?"

"You should always be having fun. It's very important, having fun. It's part of your five-a-day." Fire stared at him with a mixture of distaste and amusement.

"What?" he asked.

"You're _exactly_ like they told me." The Doctor blinked.

"Huh. Well, in that case I better keep up my reputation – Amer!" he called, bounding over to the other man. "Where's your main control room?"

"I'm taking you to it now, actually." He replied gruffly. He took his communicator from his belt and held it up to his mouth. "Tamman, what the _hell_ was that?"

"I don't know!" Came the reply. At the other end, Tamman typed furiously and thumped the machine when it wouldn't respond, trying to bring up readings for the station. "I'm trying to get some sense out of this _bloody_ thing, but the server's gone into overload!"

"Well find out!" snapped Amer. "Is everything still standing? Nobody's hurt?" Tamman twisted round to look behind him at the empty drill room.

"Nobody at this end." He replied. Then he spotted some smashed porcelain on the other side of the room. "Though I think we're running low on coffee mugs now."

"Great, thank you." Sighed Amer. "I'm coming over now." He terminated the call.

"Amer, I think I should probably go and check everyone else, just in case." Mari said, stepping forward. "If you don't need me here, that is." Amer nodded in agreement, frowning.

"That's probably a good idea. Take Banto, check that nobody was hurt and wake everybody up for the day shift. I want them all awake in case something happens, the way this day is going." The dark-haired woman nodded.

"Can I go too." Rory asked. "I can help, I'm a nurse."He explained. Amer looked at him speculatively, then nodded.

"Alright. It's probably better that you have somebody to help you." Mari smiled and turned to lead Rory back to way they had come. Amer watched them turn the corner, then turned and stated to walk briskly the other way.

The drill room was huge and cavernous, so big that Amy had to crane her neck to see the roof, which was shrouded almost completely in darkness. The curved, circular walls were the same brushed metal as the rest of the station, with glowing banks of controls lighting up the left-hand side that looked like something out of 60's NASA videos. To the right, Amy could see what looked like a small living space, with chairs, a hammock and even a coffee table set out. There was a door behind it looked like it led to a kitchenette.

But the room was dominated by what was in the centre. An enormous round drill hole, fifty feet across and, it looked to her, endlessly deep. She couldn't help but go to the railing at the edge and look over, peering down into the abyss.

"You might not want to do that." The sudden voice made her jump, and she span around to face a tall, thin man with dark hair and a beard.

"Who are you?" she asked, looking him up and down.

"Tamman." He says shortly. "You are?" Feeling vaguely irritated by his brusque tone, Amy threw her hair back and squared her shoulders.

"Amy Pond." She said assertively.

"Miss Pond – " He began.

"Mrs, actually."

"_Mrs_ Pond." Tamman started again. "I would appreciate it if you didn't lean over the railing quite _so_ much."

"What, because I might fall in?"

"Yes," Tamman ran a hand over his beard. "But also because I'm trying to run diagnostics on the drill hole and you might upset them."

"Oh," said Amy, mollified. "Sorry."

"It's fine." Sighed the man.

"Hey, Tamman!" Amer shouted from over by the controls, waving his arm. "Get over here." Tamman sighed again and trudged over to the group at the controls.

"What?" he said reluctantly. Amer scowled at him.

"We need to get down to the Mole."

"Well, you're going to have to wait." Tamman said. "I'm running diagnostics on the drill shaft after that earthquake."

"Ah!" said the Doctor. "That's where I come in, I believe. It wasn't an earthquake." He pushed his way to the control monitor and started to sonic it. "Let me have a look at that."

"Who are you?" asked Tamman, staring at the strangely dressed man.

"The Doctor!" The man in tweed grinned at Tamman. "I would shake your hand but I'm doing stuff."

"Stuff?" echoed Tamman sarcastically.

"Oh yes, terribly important stuff." The Doctor said without looking up, continuing to prod at the monitor.

"I'm Tamman." He replied, bemused. "Any other complete strangers on board that I should know about, boss?" He directed this at Amer, who was standing, arms folded, behind the Doctor. Amer scowled at him again, and jerked his head at a dark-eyed redhead standing at the back of the group.

"This one." He grunted, hand resting on his gun. Tamman frowned at his commander. Amer could be gruff at the best of times, but he had never seen him treat someone so coldly. And the way the Amer's hand kept straying to his gun – he seemed almost _unnerved _by the woman. "_Fire. _Or at least that's what Mari called her, and it stuck."

"This is – the woman that you dug up?" Tamman hissed, shocked. "The woman that was _dead_?" No wonder Amer was treating her like she was a coiled snake.

"How do you know that?" Amer frowned. Tamman tried his best to look neutral, but he'd always been a bad liar and his eyes, the traitors, flickered guiltily to Gedric.

"I _told_ you not to say anything, Gedric." Amer rounded on the young man.

"He was there when we dug her up!" Gedric protested. Amer rolled his eyes and glowered at him.

"Anyway, it's nice to meet you." Fire said to Tamman, eyes widened a tad sarcastically. Tamman could only stare in reply.

"Ah!" cried the Doctor, causing them to all turn and look. "Here we are...magnitude 4 beta 9, focus 34 clicks at 4.4.9...do you have a diagram? Love a good diagram..." he soniced the monitor again.

"You sound like my old geography teacher." Amy joked, as a 3D hologram popped up in front of the group.

It was of the asteroid, a large, roughly pyramid-shaped lump of ice, with four little domes sitting on top of the left hand corner. Amy thought they looked a bit like the bio domes from the Eden Project. A caption reading STATION 363: GUILDON, .∆.7 flashed in mid-air above it.

"What does that mean?" asked Amy, pointing at it.

"It's the designation for this place." Gedric supplied. "The first bit is the station code: owners, fleet, and rank; then the next bit is the station's name; and then our co-ordinates."

"See," the Doctor pushed a button, and a jagged red line appeared in the middle of the asteroid, highlighted in red. "It started here." He poked a finger at the hologram, and red lines spread out across the asteroid like ripples on a pond. "and then spread out across the asteroid."

"So that's like the epicentre of an earthquake, then." Amy said, surprised. "But you said it couldn't be an earthquake."

"So it's not _an_ earthquake, per say. But it's earthquake-y." Agreed the Doctor.

"So what is it?" prodded Amer. "What caused it?"

"Don't know." Said the Doctor cheerfully. "That's nice, isn't it?"

"Depends on your definition of nice." Muttered Tamman.

"Is it a threat to this station?" asked Amer urgently.

"Like I said, don't know." Shrugged the Doctor.

"Then we carry on as normal." Amer replied, and turned to face his crew. "Tamman, Gedric, I want to get down to the Mole as quickly as is safely possible, got it?"

The younger men nodded and started to work at the control bank, and meanwhile Amy (just like usual, thought the Doctor) wandered off to get some tea. After all, she had never gotten that drink. Which left the two Time Lords by themselves.

Fire was examining the hologram of the asteroid, frowning as she traced the red line in the centre with a pale finger. The Doctor cleared his throat quietly, and she glanced at him for a moment before turning back to the hologram.

"How did you end up here?" he asked, coming to stand next to her.

"Why do you want to know?" she replied without looking at him, staring into the hologram.

"Of course I want to know!"He protested. She didn't say anything – she didn't even turn around.

"I was in a resistance unit, back home. Most of us were people who were on the fringes of society; failed renegades and outsiders. All opposed to the war, to the Tyrant." The Doctor knew that she was talking about Rassilon. This would in part explain why she had been – was – so hostile to him. He had been Rassilon's great general; he had lead armies to their deaths on Rassilon's orders. The kind of figure that someone in a resistance group against him would hate with a passion.

"We had our sources, allies or at least those who were sympathetic, on the high council. When we learnt what they were planning..." she paused and licked her lips. "...I...we knew there was also a possibility...that it wouldn't happen, but that Gallifrey would be destroyed." For the first time, she met his eyes openly. "We knew there was a possibility of you doing what you did."

The Doctor could feel shame forming a horrible cold lump in his stomach, like he'd swallowed a piece of metal. He broke eye contact, not able to hold her gaze. Fire smiled mirthlessly, like she'd proven a point, but inside she felt the tiniest twinge of guilt.

It was one thing to omit truths when talking to a human, someone that couldn't have understood them anyway...it was another when it was to a Time Lord; and furthermore, the only other one left.

"So we thought of a way to escape. Random co-ordinates – we didn't want anybody following us. And I ended up here." She looked around her, and in front of them the 3D representation of the asteroid rotated slowly, red scarring its ice-blue heart. She frowned, leaning closer to it, suddenly distracted.

"Is the program for this still running?" she asked Gedric. The young engineer looked up at the question.

"Yeah, I think so. Sorry, I'll turn it off now." He leant to push a button on monitor.

"No, no, leave it up." Ordered Fire, holding up a hand. "Could you pause it for a second?" Gedric obligingly paused the asteroid in mid turn, and she pointed a finger at the red line inside the hologram. "That's got bigger since a few minutes ago."

"What?" asked Gedric, alarmed. The Doctor leant forward, squinting at the section of line that Fire was pointing to.

"It has." He said. "Oh. That's not good. And I _really_ need to think about getting some brainy specs – seriously, the amount of times the situation calls for it and I haven't got any is getting ridiculous. Gedric, could you magnify that bit?"

"Yeah," murmured Gedric, turning away for a second. "Hold on." The hologram zoomed in on the red line. Tamman and Gedric wandered over, looking curiously at the Doctor.

"What's he doing now?" demanded Amer. Gedric shrugged.

"Thinks she's spotted something." He said.

"That definitely looks different..." mumbled the Doctor. Suddenly the line twisted, sprouting offshoots.

"What – " Amer's words were lost as a deafening roar pounded through their ears. The drill room shook, the floor juddering and rocking underneath their feet, throwing them all to the floor. It was even worse than the first time – the longer the shaking went on, the harder and harder it got, until it felt like the entire room was swaying around them.

On the control bank, alert after alert flashed on the screens, a Technicolor disco of warning lights. Klaxons howled and screeched, and alarms pounded out over the sound system, but simply couldn't be heard over the awful thunder-like sound echoing all around them.

In the kitchen area, Amy shielded her face as cups and plates and cutlery came crashing to the floor, shattering into hundreds of little shards. She hauled herself to her feet and staggered to the door, remembering distantly from TV shows watched with Rory that the safest place to stand was under a door frame.

"Doctor!" she yelled, as she saw him lying on the floor with the others.

"Amy! I'm fine!" he shouted. "Stay there!"

Amy looked desperately at the shaking room around her, and tightened her grip and yelled as a large jolt threatened to throw her forward on to the floor. Broken glass and porcelain clattered around her ankles, and she held on to the door frame for dear life.

Over in the living quarters, Rory did similarly. Medical equipment lay in shards on the floor around him, and members of the station crew braced themselves underneath doors and tables and beds, anything they could find.

He could see Mari crouching under a table with another woman, teeth gritted as they rode out the tremors. A young girl, maybe only 17, was huddled in the corner next to the window. She was shouting something, but Rory couldn't hear it over the deafening rumbling, creaking sound and the rattling and smashing of equipment.

"What?" he cried.

"The bridge!" he thought he heard her shout, though the words were muffled and warbled. "The bridge is burning!" She pointed out of the window.

Outside it should have been almost completely dark – there was no discernable sunlight in this part of space, and the outdoor floodlights were powered down for the night shift. And yet Rory could see orange-yellow light bleeding in through the window.

Making a break from his door frame, he lurched towards the girl, but the momentum of the shaking suddenly threw him off balance, and he slammed hard into the wall next to the window. From here he could see it clearly – the bridge, the corridor that was the route back to the drill room, back to Amy, was on fire. Spectacularly.

As he watched, the side of the walkway _burst_, and a great gout of flame splashed out into the dark, before disappearing as it was starved of air. Rory just watched; there was nothing he could do.

Fire gritted her teeth as the floor underneath him rolled and shuddered, her thoughts racing. This was an asteroid, so how could it be experiencing something that - on the face of it – was so remarkably similar seismic activity?

No, she told herself firmly, you need to look at it the other way round. It feels like an earthquake, it looks like an earthquake, but it isn't. What was that Old Earth saying again? Something about ducks? But it _wasn't_ an earthquake, she thought. Earthquakes were caused by the movement of tectonic plates, and asteroids just didn't _have_ tectonic plates. Earthquakes on a celestial body with earth? Impossible. Asteroids, after all, were largely made of ice...

_Ice._ A perfect preservative. _Oh, my Lady, this wasn't random at all, was it?_ All it would take was the right timing; and then, the perfect disguise.

Fire twisted round to look at the hologram of the asteroid, still rotating in mid-air above her. She looked again at the red lines twisting through its centre, and laughed.

"They're not fault lines!" she yelled to the Doctor, who was lying next to her.

"What?" he shouted back, screwing up his forehead.

"The lines! They're not fault lines! They're cracks!" The Doctor's eyes widened in understanding.

"This entire asteroid is made from ice, and they're cracks!" she continued.

"But that means..." The Doctor's face took on a new urgency. "This entire place is going to torn apart!"


	6. Air

**Author's Note**

**The pace picks up in this chapter, and there's a little bit of information about Fire's life on Gallifrey. I've had to make it up here, but if anyone knows anything about the musical tradition of the Time Lords, or their attitude to same-gender couples, do let me know. I couldn't find anything.**

**HaveYouMetTheFrench**

As the shaking finally started to calm, the Doctor hauled himself upright and staggered on shaky legs to the control bank.

"We've got to get off of this asteroid!" He shouted, bashing away at a keyboard.

"What are you talking about?" Tamman struggled up from the floor, coughing.

"The entire thing is cracking." The Doctor explained. He span around and pointed to the red lines swirling through the ever-turning hologram. "Those lines? They're cracks! This entire asteroid is splintering apart, and if we stay much longer..."

"So these earthquakes, they're what, the feedback?" questioned Gedric.

"Yes," said Fire. "But if we stay too much longer then this station is going to be pulled apart. You need to evacuate everyone, now."

"Mari," Amer, meanwhile, called into his communicator. "Mari, are you there?" There was a moment's silence.

"Here, Amer." Mari said breathlessly from the other end of the line. "I'm here."

"Is everyone awake? Are any of you hurt?" Amer said urgently.

"We're all fine, apart from a few cuts and bruises. We're ok." Came the reply. Amer sighed in relief.

"Except..." Mari started.

"Boss!" It was Tamman.

"What?" said Amer irritably, putting down the communicator for a second. "What is it?"

"The bridge between here and the living quarters is down, sir." Tamman said seriously. "It ruptured and set on fire."

"We can't get back." Mari whispered through the communicator. Amer blinked and her it back up to his ear. "The bridge is just...gone." Amer breathed deeply, trying to keep calm. He was the commander of this station and he was of no use to anyone if he lost his head.

"Stay put." He advised his medical officer. "Clear up the mess as best you can, treat the injured, keep everyone _calm_." He paused. "And prepare for evacuation in necessary."

"_What?"_

"You heard me." He said evenly. "It's my station, and I'm not going to put everybody's lives at risk just for the sake of turning a profit."

"How am I supposed to keep everyone calm if I'm telling them to evacuate?" Mari protested. "They're going to lose it!"

"You're going to have to manage, Mari. Keep in touch with us."

As soon as the tremors stopped completely, Amy sprinted over to the Doctor. He was talking frantically to Gedric, the young engineer, but she recognised his tone of voice instantly. There was danger afoot.

"Doctor, what's going on?" She said.

"We're getting out of here, Pond. Even _I_ don't fancy hanging around on an asteroid that's in the process of self-destructing."

"What, just like that?"

"Yes." He said seriously. She produced a smile.

"Ok then."

"You're going to have to manage, Mari..." Amy saw that Amer was using the communicator, and almost without thinking, reached out and snagged it from his hand.

"Rory?" She spoke into the grille. "Is he alright, is Rory there?" She heard a sigh on the other end and the rustling sound as somebody fumbled with the connecting device. Then, with great relief, she heard a familiar voice crackle out of the communicator.

"I'm fine, Amy, don't worry," he said.

"Rory, the asteroid – it's falling apart."

"What?"

"Like, literally breaking into pieces. That's what the earthquakes are – the asteroid breaking up." Rory gave a long-suffering sigh at the other end of the line.

"Of course it is. Can't have a day without immediate peril, can we? Amy, I can't get back at the moment, but I'll definitely see you later, ok?"

"Yeah, Tamman said the bridge is down. I just wanted to, you know, check." She smiled. "See you then. And take care of yourself, stupid face." Rory chuckled.

"See you it a bit. Bye!" he said. Amer jerked the communicator back out of Amy's hand.

"Mari?" he said.

"Yes?"

"Make sure you keep in touch, ok? We need to keep track of everyone."

"Will do," said Mari seriously, and with a sigh, she ended the call.

"I need to get to my ship," said the Doctor urgently. "I can get everyone out of here safely, but I need to have it or we're not going anywhere." Trying to convince the station commander to do anything, thought the Doctor, was like trying to argue with an Ice Warrior. Frustrating and also rather time-consuming.

"It's dangerous. That staircase goes down 200ft, we don't know how long it's going to hold together. Go down there and you risk being trapped, and we're not going to be able to dig you out. So, I repeat, it's _dangerous._"

"Oh, I'll be fine. I eat dangerous for breakfast, don't I, Pond?" the Doctor said flippantly. "It's no less dangerous than risking a drive across the surface, where you might fall into a giant crater or something, which is your only other option at the moment." Amer narrowed him eyes at the Doctor, who, not to be outdone, twiddled his bowtie.

"Fine," he relented. "But I'm preparing the drivers. I don't have time to waste; my crew are my first priority."

"Quite right," said the Doctor. "Just one favour to ask. Could you take Fire and Amy with you?"

"What?" Amy jumped up. "Wait a minute, you can't just bundle me off like that. I'm coming with you."

"No, Amy." Said the Doctor. "It's too – "

"Don't you dare tell me it's too dangerous," flared Amy, pointing a finger at him. "Like you said, we eat danger for breakfast. We_ laugh_ in the face of danger. I'm coming with you!" Fire watched the Doctor's dressing down with mild amusement on her face.

"No, Amy. Not this time, ok? I don't want to you to get hurt, and I certainly don't want to be regenerated by Mr Pond if something happens –"

"I'm not just going to sit around up here and wait for you!" cried Amy, folding her arms. "That's just..._not_ my style!"

"Actually," said Tamman hesitantly, interrupting Amy. She glared at him. "Amer's going to need me and Gedric in setting up the drivers, so the Doctor's going to need _you_ up here." She narrowed her eyes at him, and he decided that he'd better explain quickly, or else face death by Scot.

"The route you came up with runs off the same walkway that's ruptured. It's drained all the air out of it. The emergency program can isolate the rupture, but it means that there's going to be 8 sets of air-lock grade doors in your way, Doctor. And they need to be opened from up here. Which is where you come in, Mrs Pond." Amy chewed her lip thoughtfully, but nodded, and the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alright." Amy conceded. "I'll do it."

"Why from up here?" Fire asked.

"We're having to override our own emergency protocols, and manipulate the oxygen field, both of which requires authorisation from the main control room." Said Tamman.

"Which is here." Finished Fire, and Tamman nodded. "But that means that at least one of us is going to have to wait for the Doctor, doesn't it?" The young man shrugged apologetically.

"Actually...two of you. The mainframe requires authorisation from at least two people to override the protocols." He said.

"That's both of us, then." Fire said, looking at Amy. The Doctor clapped his hands together.

"Ah, the gingers working together! The ginger ninjas! I couldn't be more safe." He grinned, but stopped immediately at Amy's glare.

"Please don't ever call me that," she warned him.

"Ginger?" said Fire, non-plussed. "What's ginger?"

"Never mind," said the Doctor cheerfully. "Right, I'll be going, then. Amy?"

"Yes, Doctor?" she said.

"If I'm running a bit late, promise not to wait for me, ok?" he said.

"Don't say that," said Amy, face tight with worry. "You'll be fine. How could you not be, with me at the controls?" She gave him a small smile.

"Amelia." The Doctor said, face serious.

"Okay, okay, I promise." She said, and gave him a hug.

"Then I'll see you later." He smiled at her, and nodded to Fire, who inclined her head in return, face unreadable. The Doctor turned on his heel and marched towards the doors, screwdriver in hand.

"I really hope your friend knows what he's doing," muttered Tamman. Amy sighed in a way that indicated that she wasn't _entirely _sure if he did, and for a moment they all watched him go. Then Fire turned to Tamman.

"Right, how do we do this?" The technician span round to face his monitor screen to demonstrate, pushing a button so that a floor plan of the damaged walkway appeared on the screen. Fire and Amy leant over his shoulders to watch. He pointed to the horizontal lines crossing the corridor.

"These are the doors you need to get through. They're designed to function as air-lock doors in situations like this, so they take a while to open and they only stay that way for a maximum of one second." He looked up at Amy. "One of you needs to override the protocols to get the doors open."

"I'll do it." She nodded.

"Ok." Tamman said. Then he moved to the monitor on the right, gesturing for Fire to watch.

"You need to manage to oxygen field." He said. "It's only going to work when the doors are open, so you're only going to have that one second to shunt the oxygen through. Unfortunately," he said, glancing up at her, "you're only going to have one lot of oxygen to start with, so the air's going to get thinner as he gets further along. The quicker he is, the better." Fire nodded to show her understanding and sat down at the monitor.

"Alright." Tamman said, looking at the both of them. "I need to go and help Gedric now, so good luck. The override key is 'Spock'."

Then he turned and jogged away to the others, who were fiddling with what looked like a very large golf buggy over on the other side of the drill hole.

"Spock," snorted Amy. Fire frowned at her.

"Why's it funny?"

"It's a reference to a TV show from my time." Amy explained. "Spock is...oh, never mind." She said, seeing that this was making less and less sense the Fire the more she explained. Amy jumped as she felt her phone go off, and reached into her pocket to pull out the bleating device. Seeing that it was the Doctor calling she answered the call, putting him on speakerphone.

"Amelia Pond!" he shouted. "Are you receiving me?"

"Loud and clear," she laughed.

"Good. I'm at the corridor now, I need you to open the door for me."

"Okay," she said, putting the phone down between her and Fire so they could both hear it. "give me a minute..." she clicked on the lowest set of doors, DR/Q .1, on the floor plan, and a dialog box popped up, displaying environment information on it. She ignored that and went for the big button at the bottom which read 'open'. Another box appeared, reading 'WARNING, AUTHORISATION REQUIRED'.

She typed in the password, looking over at Fire to make sure she was ready. The Time Lady nodded to her, willing her to go ahead. Praying that it would work, Amy hit the enter key, and watched, eyes fixed on the progress bar that appeared.

"Ok," said Amy. "in three, two, one, go!" Fire hit her enter key, and Amy saw the set of doors turn green on the floor plan. She let out a whoop of excitement.

"I'm through – oh, they close rather quickly, don't they?" said the Doctor, tinny voice echoing out of the speakerphone.

"There's only a one second delay." Fire directed at the phone. "You're air is going to start getting thinner now."

"Okay. Already feeling that, actually." A metallic sounding cough reached their ears.

"Better hurry up," said Amy. "Ready for the next door?"

"Just say the word, Pond," he said.

"Alright," she said, navigating through the dialog boxes again. "Here it comes...three...two...one...go!"

They worked through the next few sets of doors with increasing dexterity; meanwhile Tamman, Gedric and Amer were working frantically to make sure that the buggy was ready to go before the next quake inevitably hit. They had all been drilled, of course, for emergency evacuations, but they happened so rarely nowadays that it was becoming obvious that the parameters they had set for themselves weren't realistic. Everything was taking longer than they had planned for.

They needed to program their track across the surface to the rocket pad into the computer, but still have enough variables to avoid any craters or cracks that might have appeared. They needed to set up the life support needed on board, as well pack supplies for the rocket, while taking into account how the weight of it all would affect the speed of the buggy. The less time spent on the surface the better. Hopefully the Doctor would come back and, as promised, get them all out by other means; but Amer was a pragmatic man, and wasn't going to chance it all on a stranger when he had his crew to think about.

Amy couldn't help but notice that the Doctor was speaking less and less as the amount of oxygen decreased. By the time they were near the end, he was down to one-word responses.

"Through," he said.

"This is the last set of doors now." Fire told him. "Then we're depending on you to keep yourself alive."

"I'll try my best," the Doctor said, chipper as always.

"Yeah," Amy said. "I need a ride home."

"Yes, Pond," he sighed, though from mock-exasperation or genuine shortness of breath she wasn't sure. She had never actually seen the Doctor gasping for air before, despite the amount of running they got up to on a regular basis.

"Last doors," she said, drawing in a deep breath to steady herself. Select, password, enter, count..."3, 2, 1..."

"Now!" said Fire, and Amy held her breath as the last set of doors on her screen turned green.

"Doctor?" she said, when there was no immediate confirmation. "You ok?" She heard a faint, indistinguishable crackle of noise come from the phone.

"Doctor?" she tried again, beginning to feel worried. She could see out of the corner of her eye, the Fire, too was staring at the phone, pale-faced. Despite her apparent coolness towards him, she did look...concerned.

Then she heard the sound of someone sucking in deep lungfuls of air coming through the phone. She let out the breath she had been holding, leaning her forehead against her arm for a second, then snatched up the phone and pressed it to her ear.

"I'm still here," the Doctor's voice said. He sounded fine, though perhaps a little croaky. "The air's better in here. I'm starting to head down now." He coughed. "I'll tell you when I reach the bottom."

"Ok," said Amy. "See you later!" Amy put the phone down and looked at Fire, who was leaning her head back, eyes close, hands folded on her stomach, looking almost like the corpse she had been not a few hours ago. Amy had never been one to beat about the bush, or to be intimidated, and so she didn't feel particularly reticent about asking Fire questions.

"What are you going to do after this is all over?" she said. The Time Lady opened her eyes to gaze at Amy with a cool laziness.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

"Are you going to come with us? With the Doctor?" Amy asked outright. Fire raised her eyebrow slightly.

"No," she said, and closed her eyes again.

"Why not?" Amy demanded, mildly irritated about how Fire was treating her. With a sigh, the other woman sat up so that she was facing Amy.

"Because I don't want to," she said simply. "I have no desire whatsoever to travel with him."

"Again, why not?" Amy replied.

"You mean to ask _why_ I do not wish to travel with the man who killed my entire species?" Amy didn't really know what she could say in response to that, and Fire sat back in her chair, watching Amy as though curious as to what she would do next.

"He gets lonely," she said carefully. "I mean, he has me and Rory, and River, and other friends as well, but it's not the same. Not the same as having another Time Lord there." She paused to gauge Fire's reaction, but her face was carefully neutral. "I thought that the same...might apply to you, that's all." Her face suddenly acquired a sad softness, and her dark eyes, when they looked into Amy's, didn't look quite so distant as before.

"I...need time to grieve for them, Amy. I haven't just lost my planet, I've lost my family, my friends, as well." Her eyes, for a moment, shone with what could've been tears, but then she looked away, drawing in a deep breath. Amy, having lost her daughter, having lost Rory, once, could understand how that felt.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Thank you." Fire whispered. Shaking her head, she let out a small, hard laugh. "It's ironic, really."

Amy frowned at her questioningly.

"How?" she said. The Time Lady flicked a glance at Amy, as though measuring her, deciding whether to give her an answer.

"Because I was never allowed off Gallifrey before, and now I'm stranded out here _because_ of him." She said quietly. "They wouldn't let me leave in case I didn't go back, and now I never will." She snorted to herself and glanced at Amy again. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"Why wouldn't they let you go?" The Doctor's tinny-sounding voice came through the phone's speaker. Amy had forgotten to hang up. Fire tensed.

"It doesn't matter," she said tersely, and reached forward, closing the phone with a snap. Amy regarded her warily – opened her mouth as if to say something, but thought better of it. She sighed. She jumped when the phone started to ring again. The name 'Doctor' flashed on the screen, and she opened up the phone.

"I'm at the bottom now," he said. "I'll be there soon, Pond – actually, make sure you talk to your husband, don't want him out of the loop. We'll pop over to get him too."

"Yes, sir!" Amy said mock-seriously. Smiling a little, she scrolled through the contacts, found Rory and hit the green button. After a few rings, he picked up.

"Hello, wife. What's going on now?"

"Hello, husband. Called to give you a heads up, really," she said, putting her feet up on the control bank.

"Oh?" he said. "What about? Everyone's getting ready to leave down here."

"The Doctor's gone back down to the mole to get the TARDIS." She heard a very loud noise in the background, what sounded like a large _crash._

"Rory?" she said. There was a rustling noise, and then Rory's voice came back on.

"Sorry, what was that?" he said.

"The Doctor's gone to get the TARDIS, so we can leave." Rory sighed.

"Alright – hang on, has he gone down there_ by himself?_"

"Yeah," said Amy. She swung her feet back down to the ground, and scuffed them against the floor guiltily. "He made me stay behind." Rory made an exclamation that hovered in between amazement and frustration.

"He really has no concept of danger, does he? I mean, why _not_ walk down a dark underground staircase, _by yourself, _in the middle of an asteroid that's falling apart? Oh, I'm going to kill him if he makes it back."

"Of course he's going to make it back," corrected Amy. "He's the Doctor, you know what he's like."

"Yeah," sighed Rory. "I do."

"We'll come and get you soon, ok?" Amy said.

"Yeah. Keep yourself safe, Amy," her husband's voice was serious. "I mean it."

"Of course I will," she said quietly. "I'll be there soon." The call ended, and Amy squeezed her eyes shut, dragging a hand across her face. She couldn't help but feel a prickle of worry about _both_ of her boys, neither of them here with her; and she hated having to just wait around for the Doctor to come back, not doing anything. She had promised him not to go after him, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

Amy opened her eyes to see Fire smiling to herself wistfully, eyes glistening with tears.

"You really love each other, don't you?" she said, turning to look at Amy. She had a kind of strange, hungry on her face, an expression that bordered on envy and made Amy feel a little unnerved by the intensity of it.

"Yes," she replied. "He waited two thousand years for me once." She smiled to herself at the thought – her Rory. "Did you...have anyone?" Fire's face transformed into that same dark, unreadable expression that she'd seen the Doctor wear when he was thinking about those _he_ had lost.

"I did. A...a long time ago, certainly by your standards. When I was young." Amy was of the school of thought that talking about things was far better than keeping them to yourself – something that she often had to poke and prod the Doctor to do. In grief, she knew, it was far better to talk about those you had lost, to help preserve their memories, than to bottle them up as they hurt you.

"I met Rory when I was six years old." Amy said. "It took ages to realize he was interested in me though – I thought he, you know, liked men, for _ages._" She laughed, remembering. "Because he'd never shown any interest in other girls."

"I met Norna when I was 75." She said, smiling wistfully. "We studied together when I was introduced into the upper novitiates."

"What was he like?" Amy replied.

"She," Fire corrected. Amy couldn't hide her immediate surprise, and Fire laughed – a proper laugh this time, not the sour, mirthless sounds that she had uttered before. "Oh, humans. Sometime you're so..._quaint._"

"Sorry," said Amy. "It's just...from what I've heard , the Time Lords were just so, you know _uptight_. I wouldn't have thought of them as being, um, gay."

"Gay?" Fire frowned at Amy, puzzled.

"Um...being attracted to someone of the same gender." Amy clarified.

"Oh, they didn't approve of attraction in general." said Fire. "But because of regeneration, I suppose, gender was thought of as being more...transitory, temporary. So it wasn't an issue."

"Yeah, the Corsair..." Amy remembered the Doctor gabbling something about the Corsair, which included an interesting mix of pronouns. Fire inclined her head.

"One of those who was curious – or reckless, as some would have it – to deliberately change genders. But there wasn't any particular distaste for same-gender couplings, any more than there was for their opposite gender counterparts."

She smiled as if still enjoying Amy's reaction to that particular piece of information, and Amy blinked and shook her head, filing that subject away to ask the Doctor about later.

"What are those?" Amy asked, pointing as the marks on Fire's arm where the sleeve was still rolled up. They were barely visible now all the gold had faded, only noticeable because they were shade paler than the surrounding skin, almost the same colour as a scar or a birthmark. Fire traced one of the circles in the swirling pattern with the tip of one finger.

"The mark of my house," the Time Lady explained, "ceremonial tattoos."

"What do they mean?" Amy said.

"It's a poem – well, not a poem, a song...how would you say it? A story written in song form."

"A ballad, we would say in English." Amy answered.

" A _ballad_, then. My House was famous for their talent for history and for music, particularly singing and playing the _shamet_ – and instrument similar to your harp," she clarified. "Very often history, as well as being stored, was recorded through song, particularly that of famous people or events. One of the most famous –" she frowned, "well, I won't explain it now, it's rather complicated. Suffice to say that it was made up of several individual songs that were layered and harmonised together to create one larger one. When a child was born into house, they were marked by the first line of the song on their shoulder, and as they became more skilful in their ballading –"

"That's not a word." Amy interrupted, but Fire waved a hand airily.

"Whichever word you would choose to describe that art, then," she countered, continuing regardless. "Anyway, as one became more skilful and rose through the ranks, you would have more and more of the song added to you in its layers – some people added personal words too, describing their own lives. The highest ranking player, our choir leader, would have a full body tattoo."

"Do you?" asked Amy, intensely curious.

"No." said Fire. "I was only middle-ranking by the time –" she stopped suddenly.

"By the time of the War." Amy finished softly, and Fire nodded.

"Yes." she whispered. "By the time of the War. My tattoo only covers my arm and hand."

"Hand?" said Amy.

"Yes. It's concealed right now, though." She snorted rather derisively. "Look at me," she muttered. "Talking about these things to you, a perfect stranger." Amy frowned a bit at that, but leant forward so that she could look Fire in the eye.

"It's good to talk about them. To preserve those memories, to let yourself grieve." She paused, wondering if it would be too personal."I...lost my daughter. It helped me, talking." Fire looked at her with dark eyes, and Amy wondered what she was thinking.

"We were always taught to control our emotions, to be rational at all times. Not to...share our feelings." She said.

"God," said Amy, without really thinking. "Time Lord society sounds _so_ messed up sometimes." She winced inwardly when the words came out of her mouth – Rory had always said that she had a tendency to just say what was in her head without thinking about it. Fire, for her part, seemed to find Amy's comment funny.

"It could be, yes." she said. Amy turned round as they heard footsteps behind them – for a moment she thought it might have been the Doctor.

"We're almost ready," he said. "If the Doctor's not back soon-"

"He's coming back." Amy said firmly.

"I hope so." Said Tamman earnestly. "But he told us not to wait for him if we were ready to go."

"How long?" asked Fire.

"A few minutes." Tamman spread his hands helplessly. "If he's not back by then..."

"We understand." said Fire seriously. Tamman nodded anxiously and went over to the kitchen to pack whatever food was left.

"Where _is_ he?" said Amy. "He called earlier to let us know that he was practically there." Fire shrugged apologetically, face tight.

"I'm sure that he'll be fine. He had a reputation for getting out of difficult situations."

"Still does." murmured Amy. A buzzing sound caught at her ear. "What's that sound?"

"I don't know." said Fire, frowning. She hit some buttons on the screen, and her eyes widened. "Amy, you might want to hold on."

"Sorry?" she replied.

"There's another –" her next words were lost beneath the tidal wave of sound that echoed all around then, crashing against Amy's ears so that it felt like a physical thing, bruising her hearing. Fire was gripping desperately onto the sides of the monitor, teeth gritted and a grim expression of determination fixed on her face. Amy wasn't so lucky – she hadn't had the time to prepare herself before the shaking had started and she'd been thrown to the floor with painful force.

The screens and lights on the control bank were blaring out reports and warnings, and Fire, despite the pounding, grinding, rumbling convulsions that shook the entire drill room, was doing her best to read them.

"The walkway's severed!" she shouted. On the monitor in front of her, the floor plan of the walkway was highlighted entirely in red, showing where the end that connected to them had sheared clean off and fallen off its pilings onto the ice below. There was no other way back for the Doctor now – he was on his own.

The Doctor for his part, had been fine. The ordeal of getting through those doors, with their increasingly diminished air, had tested even his respiratory bypass, and he was grateful that when he reached the stairwell he had been able to breathe properly again. He had made good progress down the stairs, bounding down two, three at a time, eager to get back to the TARDIS as soon as possible. It had been when he'd overhead Fire and Amy's conversation that he'd stopped.

"_I was never allowed off Gallifrey before, and now I'm stranded out here because of him." _she had said._ "They wouldn't let me leave in case I didn't go back, and now I never will."_

He'd been so thrilled and overwhelmed at finding her at all that he hadn't really stopped to think about what would happen to her after this; despite her apparent hostility towards him, he had just assumed that she would go with them in the TARDIS. But she didn't want to – she had, in her own words, _'no desire whatsoever'_ to go with them.

And she had never been off Gallifrey, it wouldn't be like it had been for him – already an experienced traveller, for whom the universe had been his back yard for hundreds of years before there was no Gallifrey to return to. Where would she go? With no method of transport, where _could_ she go? It troubled him.

She was the only other one left, and he found that he _wanted_ to protect her, to take care of her; but she had made it abundantly clear that she didn't want him anywhere _near_ her.

Shaking his head, he reminded himself to keep moving, and set off, trudging down the stairs far slower than he had been doing previously, left alone in the dark, with only his own thoughts for company.

Despite the Time Lady upstairs...he still couldn't sense her telepathically at all; which he supposed made sense, given that she would have had to conceal her thoughts to keep her resistance group a secret. Her telepathic shields must be outrageously strong.

_Snap out of it!_ he told himself, but nevertheless all his thoughts kept circling back to her.

He called Amy when he reached the bottom of the staircase, when he had reached the outer door of the mole. He took out his screwdriver and started to sonic the panel next to the door, but to his annoyance, all it did was start blaring and flashing and generally _not opening_. So he tried a different setting, to disable the alarm, but that didn't work, so he tried another setting. That, too, failed to get the door to move.

He was considering just frying the stupid thing to see if _that_ worked, but came to the conclusion that, as an outer door, its default setting was closed anyway.

All in all, it took him a good five minutes to get in, and he glared in triumph at the lock panel as he strode past it.

_Hah! Thought you could defeat me, did you? Honestly, this is only the 31__st__ century, it really shouldn't be that hard to get into. What did they put in it, wood? I am never mentioning this to Pond. She'd have a field day!_

He was abruptly shaken out of his thoughts when the entire room around him twisted suddenly, throwing him bodily into a wall, and a terrible grinding, screeching sound pierced his hearing like nails on a chalkboard.

He hauled himself back up again, only to throw himself on the floor as the roof – or was is wall? – buckled inwards, missing his head by inches. He started to crawl out from underneath it – he could see the cupboard where the TARDIS was – but then there was another sharp _boom _and _screech_ and something very solid and heavy came down on the left side of his head. His last thought was something along the lines of _that's twice in one day now._


	7. Blood

**Author's Note:**

**Sorry that it has taken me so long to post this chapter – it's the first one that hasn't already been written, but I've already started on the next one, so that should be up in better time. It's been a struggle to write, largely because of trying to get the characters right and not make them seem wildly OOC. But, only a few more chapters left now!**

**This is part of a series of stories, and I've started to work out some of the others, which should be out soon, including the direct sequel to this featuring companions from some of the other series, and a kind of prequel about my OC Fire. But all in good time!**

**You can now also find me on A Teaspoon and An Open Mind, under the same penname. **

The shaking this time was longer and harder than all the other times combined. Amy's teeth felt like they might fall out of her skull because they had been rattled so much and her ears were ringing from the noise. Her back and side hurt from where she had fallen.

"Are you okay?" asked Fire, grabbing her arm and helping her up from the floor.

"I'm fine," mumbled Amy, reaching for her phone. She scrolled through the contacts, hitting the green button when she got to the Doctor, and waited. The dial tone went on for what seemed like forever. _Come on, come on, come on..._she thought, _just pick up the phone, tell me you're ok..._

"Hello!" came the Doctor's voice, and Amy felt her anxiety lift for a moment – "You've reached my voicemail!"

Amy felt like something very heavy had just crushed her to the floor.

"A voicemail?" She heard her own voice laugh, as the recording played on. "Not really your style, is it?"

"Shut up, Pond, I can have one if I want to." She could practically hear the Doctor stick his tongue out at her. "Although someone did once tell me –" She hung up then, hating to listen to any more of it.

"I'm sorry," said Fire, almost automatically at the look on Amy's face.

"He's not dead," Amy replied. She felt slightly numb, as though her entire body had gone on autopilot and it wasn't really her speaking the words. "He's not dead."

Amer came marching over to them, Gedric following behind them.

"I'm sorry ladies, but we're leaving now."

"But we can't!" Amy protested, snapping out of it. "The Doctor isn't back yet!"

"I'm sorry," said the commander firmly, "but we promised not to wait for him and it's a promise I intend to keep. He knew what he was getting into."

"But –" she started, but he held up a hand to silence her.

"You're coming with us, Mrs. Pond. It's our duty to get you to safety." The use of 'Mrs.' startled Amy, and she thought of Rory, and of what the Doctor had said about Rory not forgiving him if something happened to her.

"No!" she shouted. "I –"

"Mrs Pond, you're bleeding." She frowned at Amer in momentary confusion, checking herself over. On her leg was a gash, six inches long and bleeding profusely, dripping gore into her socks.

"But I can't stay here if he's in trouble – "

"You promised him too," Fire hissed in Amy's ear, fingers tightening around her arm. "You promised not to wait." Amy yanked her limb free of the Time Lady's grasp, irritated by the irony of it all.

"But what about you?" she shouted. "You didn't promise to go with them! He's the only other of your kind, for God's sake!"

"He is not my responsibility!" Fire thundered, eyes flashing. For a moment the two redheads stood glaring at each other, their previous friendliness forgotten. "And if he's such a _treasure _to you, then _you _can go and get him!"

Amer flinched at the alien, inhuman rage etched into her features, but Amy had faced down the Doctor on more than one occasion and wasn't going to be scared now.

"Fine!" Amy shouted. "I will!"

"You will not," Amer swore. "I'm not letting you go, and you're in no codition to in the first place." Amy glared at him, turning back to Fire.

"I know what he did was terrible," she argued. "I know it was. But he did it for the right reasons, and what would have happened if he hadn't would have been so much worse. And – and he _hates_ himself for what happened," she continued. "I think half the reason he goes around saving people all the time is to make up for it."

"I don't understand it," Fire said, shaking her head. "How can you place such trust in him, knowing what he's capable of?"

"Because that isn't who he _wants_ to be," Amy said. "Because everyone deserves a second chance. So _please_, just go and look for him, will you?" She didn't like begging – it really wasn't her style, she much preferred just getting things done herself, but this was an exceptional circumstance.

Fire looked at Amy, and inside, Amy was hoping against hope that Fire would relent, if only just this once. That she would climb down into this damn asteroid and find him. They stared at each other for a long moment, and she could sense that the Time Lady was coming to a decision.

Fire lifted her chin and looked at Amer, drawing herself up to full height.

"Fine. I'm staying behind," she said. "I'm going to get him."

"For God's sake," Amer cried. "We've already lost one person, I'm not losing another!"

"Do not seek to dissuade me," said Fire bluntly. "You won't succeed. The Doctor is only other of my species, and that is a right far older and deeper than a promise made in haste less than an hour ago."

"It's suicide going down there!" warned Amer.

"Were you not listening?" she snapped back. "I'm not human. I'm much more resilient than you. Now, where are your maintenance harnesses?"

"What do you want _them _for?"

"The walkway is completely gone, so I'm going to have to drill down to the mole myself," she said. "Manually. I'm going down the drill shaft."

"This is mad! _Completely_ mad, and stupid!" he shouted, pointing, outraged, at the drill hole. "We've gone through three major tremors already, with more on the way. The entire thing is going to collapse on top of you!"

"Not if I'm quick," she countered. Seeing that the older man wasn't going to help her, she turned her gaze to Gedric. It only took a moment under the weight of that stare for him to give in. He pointed over to a large metal cupboard next to the control bank.

"In there," he whispered, receiving a withering glare from his commander. She strode over to it, throwing open the doors.

"Ah, excellent," she murmured, pulling a harness, a cable and a torch off a metal rack inside. She stepped into the harness, clipping up around her waist and across her chest, then turned to the group.

"You should go," she said seriously, tugging on a strap to adjust it. "No point hanging around – you're right, Amer, it is dangerous around here, and not all of us have lives to spare." Though probably mystified by the latter part of that statement, the station commander nodded and turned to go, taking Amy by the arm and giving a quick jerk of the head to Gedric. Halfway across the floor, Amy broke from him, dashed back to Fire and hugged her tight.

Rather shocked by this human display of affection, the Time Lady just stood there, arms akimbo under Amy's embrace.

"Thank you," Amy whispered in her ear.

"I hope you're right about him," said Fire, extricating herself. Amy smiled, thinking of the last woman that she had convinced of the Doctor's worth – River. She turned and ran back to the others, and Fire watched her go, shaking her head. Honestly - humans.

* * *

Fire dragged the pile of cable over to the railing, clipping it onto the sturdy-looking metal bar at tone end, and the metal ring on her harness at the other, and carefully so as not to slip, she climbed over the railing. It was a long, _long_ way down, she thought. She couldn't even see the bottom.

She breathed deeply and steadily, until the rhythm of her breathing matched that of her hearts, beating rapidly inside her chest. She closed her eyes and rose up on the balls of her feet until she was balancing perfectly, right on the edge of the precipice. With a final twist of resolution, she leaned forward and let herself freefall into space; executing a perfect swan dive.

For several long seconds she fell through the darkness, plunging headfirst into the black, before, with a _snap_, the cable reached its limit. She stopped dead in midair, the jolt from the harness crushing the breath out of her. She swung there for a minute, suspended, feeling the air move past her face, before gradually coming to rest against the wall of the drill shaft.

It was cold down there – the kind of chill that gets right to your bones and makes you feel that you'll never be warm again. The wall she touched burned against her skin, despite the fact it was freezing. If she'd been able to see at that moment, she'd have been able to see breath hanging in the still air.

Hmm. There appeared to be a small, blue, blinking light in front of her. Reaching for her torch, which she'd stuffed in a handy pocket attached to the harness, she clicked it on and pointed it in the direction of the light. It appeared to be metal and plastic, boxy and the approximate size of a Labrador. One of the drill drones, she guessed, on its way down to collect ore. She shifted her weight and swung over to it. Yes – she could see a strip of metal embedded in the wall next to it, the magnetic line that the drones used to get up and down the sides.

Hopefully, she thought, there should be a control mechanism on it somewhere – otherwise how would they do maintenance and programming...?

Ah, there it was. She hooked her finger under a catch, and flipped down the panel, revealing a square of brightness, about the size of a post-it note. She winced internally at the temperature – the metal was so cold that it was uncomfortable to touch.

The control mechanism was basically a sat-nav that directed the drones around to bring ore up and take materials down. It would also, hoped Fire, have the location of the mole programmed into it, so that the drones didn't accidentally bore a hole into the side of it. Which was, incidentally, exactly what she was planning to do. She felt for the release button next to the screen and popped it out into her hand. So, that was her navigation. Now for the drill itself.

It took a few, desperate minutes to unlatch the drill from the main boxy piece of metal, and when she finally managed to disconnect it, she almost dropped it form the weight. It was certainly heavier than she'd expected, and in the torchlight she could make out that it was made mostly from metal that was covered in a super-insulating plastic, with two bars on the inside that clipped onto something inside the drone- for her, they would function as crude handles.

Unfortunately, disconnecting it from the drone was going to kill its battery rather quickly. She'd have to move fast or she wouldn't be able to reach him.

She considered, for a moment, why she had done this at all. She had been so _sure_ that she hated him, when she had first woken up. And now, only hours later, she was risking her own life to save his. Why?

She supposed it might have been loneliness – the Doctor was the only other Time Lord left. The only other who, if asked, could describe to her the exact colour of the sky on Gallifrey in-between sunsets. The thought made her ache inside, to think that she would never look at that sky again, after seeing it every day for the whole of her life.

The other reason was guilt. That human, Amy, had struck a nerve when she had said that everyone deserved a second chance. After experiencing a war during which her own people's very _identity_ had been eroded – their compassion, however limited, stripped from them; their mercy, however stringent, ground down to nothing – well, after experiencing that, she didn't know if she had it in her to deny a second chance to someone. Even someone she hated.

And the third reason...well, she didn't want to think that _that_ could be a reason at all. It was too shameful, considering what had happened.

Shaking her head to clear it of such thoughts, she swung away from the drone and swivelled until she was in the abseiling position. Bracing her feet against the sides, she levered the drill so it was pointing straight into the wall and hit the button.

* * *

The buggy, their ground-going escape pod, was sitting in a little anteroom only one or two feet wider than it, an emergency airlock that led directly to the surface outside. The buggy itself was bigger than she was expecting, more like the size of a car, and Amy could see that the back was stuffed with supplies, including packs of soup, dehydrated food and water, as well as a large box with the still-universal sign of the Red Cross on it. The seats inside were narrow and cramped, with two facing out the front and six facing each other three-on-three in the back.

Gedric was sitting in the front, bent over the controls, and Amy clambered into the back with Tamman, seating herself stiffly on one of the narrow seats. She clipped what looked like a rubbery seatbelt across her, as with a pneumatic hiss the side door to the vehicle sealed shut.

"Let's get out here." Amer said from the front, and Gedric nodded, pushing a button on the screen.

"Sealing the airlock now..." he said, and Amy heard a mechanical whirring from behind her. She twisted round in her seat to see two sliding metal doors seal off the doorway they had come through. It made her feel oddly claustrophobic.

"And opening the other side." Gedric continued. On the opposite side, in front of the buggy, two identical doors moved apart to reveal the surface outside. She leaned forward, trying to get a look, but it was almost completely dark.

"We're going to need those headlights," said Amer, "the main floodlights aren't working." Gedric obediently flicked on the headlights, and the surface was illuminated – well, in part.

The surface was white-blue and craggy, with none of the eroded smoothness that existed on planets – there was no weather out here, after all. In the night-like sky, hundreds of thousands of other asteroids hung, blue-white-silver, so close that it looked like you might be able to touch them. To Amy, it looked like being surrounded by icebergs; which, she supposed, was actually pretty close to the truth. It looked cold, sterile and beautiful.

With a whirring of engines, the buggy moved forward, rolling down a short ramp until, with a soft bump, it reached the surface and started to drive across the ice.

* * *

The laser that the drill used was certainly effective; she had to give it that. It had only taken it a few seconds to bore a man-sized hole in the side of the ice that was twenty foot deep. Thankfully, she had been able to guide it downwards, so the tunnel she had created now had a rather steep slope, looking rather like an enormous swimming pool slide. She swung herself inside, disconnecting the harness from the cable – she wouldn't be able to get any deeper if she was still wearing it.

The inside of the hole was slippery with melted ice, which was slowly beginning to form a rivulet running downwards into the darkness of the ice. Carefully shifting her grip on the drill, she crouched down and slowly let herself slide downwards, her torch clamped between her teeth for light.

When, after a few moments, she reached the bottom, she pulled out the navigator out and checked where she was. Some of the machinery in the drill room must have still been working, because the tunnel she was standing, or rather sitting, in had appeared on the map. She worked out that if she carried on more or less in the same direction and angle of descent, she would reach the hull of the mole. Hopefully the drill would be up to cutting through it.

So she pushed herself back a few feet from the surprisingly abrupt end of the tunnel, bracing her knees against the walls. She could feel the icy wetness soaking though her thin trousers, but ignored it, and hit the button of the drill, squeezing her eyes shut against the light and turning her face away from the intense heat. It wasn't so bad outside, but here in this smaller area she could feel it roasting her face and arms rather unpleasantly.

The result was another deep hole carved into the ice, even longer and steeper than the first. She checked the battery and frowned – it was already down to 34%! Deciding she really didn't have the time to slide down carefully, she just gripped the drill and her torch as tight as she can, and let herself hurtle down, down, into a freezing darkness.

Her feet slammed into the end of the tunnel hard, jarring her and sending bolts of pain soaring up her legs into her spine. Wincing, she pushed the sensation aside for the moment and re-checked the navigator. She was very nearly there – practically level with it. She must have fallen short because of how steep that second section was.

The drill had only 11% of the battery left now. It was her last chance to reach the Doctor, or they both would die.

That's cheerful, she thought. The last of the Time Lords being defeated by a lump of ice – not really the end she was picturing for herself, what seems like only days ago.

But she didn't have time enough to ponder that. Instead, she hit the button, trying to hold the drill horizontal while not getting roasted, and when she was done, shone the torch down the space she'd created. Perhaps only a few feet behind the ice at the end of the tunnel is a solid gray mass – the hull of the ship.

She was there.


	8. Cracks

Rory was surrounded by a flurry of activity. People were scurrying back and forth, reading supplies for evacuation: everything from food to medicines to entertainment. Mari, as the most senior crew member in the room, was standing in the middle, barking orders while doing her best to make the walking wounded fit to travel. Rory was doing the same, trying the best he could with the unfamiliar supplies.

Thankfully he'd had a bit of experience patching them all up in the TARDIS Medbay, which helped him recognise a few things – the sealing gel for wounds, for example, which contained natural cells that vastly sped up healing and prevented infection. To his 21st century mind, some of the things he saw seemed mind-boggling, and he often wished he could pocket a few things to take back to the hospital with him.

Mari strode over to him, worry creasing her forehead.

"Rory, we're leaving now. Get everyone moving, ok?" he nodded, finishing up on his current patient, a man in his mid-thirties with a deep cut on him arm. "And could you check up with your wife in the command group? I want to know how they're doing." With that, she turned on her heel and hurried off, herding people towards the doors as she went. Rory pulled his phone out of his pocket and rang Amy on speed dial. She picks up one the first ring, and the first word out of her mouth is;

"Doctor?" Rory winced, feeling bad for his wife and even worse for his friend, walking around underneath several thousand tonnes of ice.

"No, it's me," he said.

"Oh," she said. "Are you ok? Nothing's happened, has it?"

"No, no," he reassured her. "We're fine over here. I wanted to know how you're doing, actually, Mari wanted to know because everyone heading for the rocket now."

"We are too," Amy said, he voice sounding oddly flat, "just..."

"What?" he said, suddenly worried.

"Fire...Fire's gone down there after him," she blurted. "I wanted to, but I promised him I wouldn't, so I asked her, and eventually she said yes..."

"So she's not with you?"

"No," Amy said, sounding a little guilty, "no, she told us to go without her. We're heading across the surface towards the rocket now." Rory let out a breath through his nose.

"Right," he said. "Amy, why did you do that?" There was a pause as his wife, uncharacteristically, considers her words carefully.

"He's taking too long," she said finally. "I'm worried about him. If he got hurt, or, or _trapped_, down there...we wouldn't be able to..."

"I understand," Rory said softly. "I'm sure he's fine. I'm just surprised she agreed to it, that's all. Didn't seem like she wanted anything to do with him earlier."

"Yeah, she kind of said as much to me, actually." There was a loud background noise from Amy's end of the line. "But we're all fine, fine."

"Alright," he said, nodding to Mari as she gestured at him. "How long do you think you'll be?"

He heard a rustling as Amy shifted the phone around, and her distant voice repeating the question to someone else – he didn't hear the reply, but a second later Amy came back on the line.

"He says about ten minutes."

* * *

Amy stared out of the tiny window of the buggy at the landscape outside. Absentmindedly, she shifted her leg and winced at the pain. Tamman had stitched her up as best he was able, but he was no medic, and the best he had got was some dermal accelerant and a bandage to cover the wound.

Amy had a horrible suspicion that there was still glass in it – she wished Rory were there with her to check it for her. She had always hated going to hospital, the GP's, or even the school nurse – to her childhood mind, they were not _real_ doctors, not like her Raggedy Man. This had gotten worse when Aunt Sharon had started taking her to the psychiatrists, and her mistrust of medical institutions had carried on to her adulthood – so she always went to Rory instead, trusting him rather than a detached stranger in a white coat.

He had been fine on the phone, but she couldn't help but worry about him. Out here on the surface, with nothing to cushion them, they felt the ice below them tremor and shake almost continuously, and they had had to make several detours already because of splits that had appeared out of nowhere.

They were going past one now, and she craned her neck to get a better view. She was reminded of a nature program she had watched as a kid, as a man hiked up a glacier, wearing those spiked shoes they used for walking on ice.

"You mustn't walk near the crevasses," he had said. "If you fall in, you don't know how deep they are – some of them go right to the bottom of the glacier. If you get stuck down _there_, there's no way back."

The ground starts to shake again.

* * *

Deep underground, Fire heard a low groaning, rumbling sound start within the ice around her. She froze, her hands stilling on the drill as she paused to listen to it. Foreboding skittered down her spine in a warning. _Stop stalling_, she told herself. _You need to move, and quickly._

The battery on the drill was almost dead – she would be cutting it fine trying to get through the hull. She wasn't even sure if it was _capable_ of doing so. Ignoring the walls starting to squeak, she hit the button. This time she squinted her eyes and looked at where she was drilling, bright red light suffusing her vision. The ice melted away in a second, revealing the metal beneath, which started to glow red hot, a split appearing down the middle as it buckled under the intense heat..._almost there,_ she thought, _come on..._

The metal burst open, and shards of hull caught at her face as they exploded outwards, leaving a ragged gap in the hull.

"Yes!" she shouted, but her triumph was short lived as a great sheet of ice fell from the roof of the tunnel. She threw herself backwards to avoid it, hitting the ground hard, and the ice sheet buried itself in the ground. Getting to her feet and wiping ice flecks off her face, she glared at the ice.

"You're doing this _now?"_ she said. "Really? I need to get through! Come on!"

She picked up the drill from where it had fallen – thankfully it didn't appear damaged, but... she pushed the button. Nothing happened.

She tried again, holding it down. This time it made a promising sort of whirring noise, before going silent with a clunk. A small light flashed on the side, and then that went out as well. She hit the button again and again, but nothing happened, and with a cry of anger she hurled it on the ground, kicking it violently for good measure. Sniffing, she rubbed at her face, wiping at what might have been a tear.

"I am _not_ going to die down here," she told herself sternly. "Not if there's anything I can do about it."

There was still a fault in the ice, a long splinter-thin crack. If she hit that right, she might be able to get through...she heard the groaning pitch of the ice change, and a distant roar reverberated around her. Half-illuminated by the light coming through form the Mole, she examined the tunnel walls. They were vibrating, shaking slightly under her touch, as she could see the beginning of hairline fractured forming.

She pursed her lips anxiously. This entire tunnel was a weak point in the ice – it would be the first place to go. She needed to hurry up –

Her thought was interrupted by a mighty _roar-boom-crash _as part of the tunnel above her caved in, sending a wave of icy water flooding into where she was standing, accompanied by large chunks of ice that make horrible scraping noises as they slid down.

Ok, she _really_ needed to hurry up.

Turning side-on to face the ice sheet, she stared at it resolutely and drew in a long breath.

Then with a yell, she charged towards it, slamming her shoulder against the fracture as hard as she could. It didn't budge, and she stood back from it, rubbing her shoulder. It occurred to her to use the drill, but on second thought decided the metal was too soft and wouldn't withstand the impact. Which left her with no tools to hand.

Rather than damage her shoulder any further – after all, she hasn't had this body very long, and it's not like you get a warranty on these things – she opted to try and kick it on the second attempt. Eyeing the shaking walls, she lined herself up and lashed out with her leg, landing a solid kick on the crack with a _smack_. A small area around her boot heel splintered into spider-web like fractures, but the impact appeared not to have had much affect.

She kicked again – a roundhouse kick, the kind that could break down doors – but again, the ice refused to break.

The shaking around her intensified, and this time she had to be careful not to slip on the trembling, slippery ice as she let loose another blow with a grunt of effort. The small pool of melt-water around her was visibly moving now, tiny waves forming at the edges, and she heard another _boom-crash-roar_. Except this time it went on and one, pounding at her eardrums in the confined space for precisely 32.34 seconds, the sound echoing and intensifying and _deafening._

The sound of her next two, three, four impacts were lost beneath it.

She battered at the ice, determination focusing her mind and desperation pounding through her body as the frozen depths of the asteroid groaned and split around her.

Any second now, the roof could collapse.

Any second now, several tonnes of ice could fall on her.

Any second now she could die.

* * *

Amy gripped onto her seat so hard her knuckles turned white. The buggy jolted and shuddered around her, and despite herself she risked a glance outside. The crack, the crater she saw just a moment ago is widening; chunks of ice the size of wardrobes and cars split off and tumbled into darkness.

Tamman across from her was stark white in his seat, eyes clenched shut. She could see him muttering to himself, making a gesture with his hand over and over again like he was praying. Amy wasn't religious, but at times like this she couldn't help but throw a reflexive plea to whatever deity or force might be listening.

_Just get the Doctor back here,_ she thought. _Get him back here so we can leave._

Suddenly the buggy tipped violently to the right, and Amy was grateful for the seatbelt that kept her from slamming into the door. Dull pain radiated though her shoulder and ribs as it dug into her, and she felt her stomach drop as the buggy started to tip backwards like a bad rollercoaster ride preparing for the final plunge.

"Gedric!" Amer yelled, and the younger man rammed the control stick upwards; machinery whirred, gears clunked and ground as the wheels spin frantically trying to get a grip.

"Do something!" Amer shouted.

* * *

Fire jumped as a chunk of ice the side of a large dog sheared off the roof and shattered on the ground, missing her by only a few feet. The tunnel now resembled a cave, backlit by the odd red glow of mechanical lights form the Mole. It was so _close_ – just a few steps away, but the block of ice...

A colossal tremor ripped through the ice, unleashing a crashing wave of sound as the walls around her appeared to ripple and sway. More chunks of ice came raining down. She threw her arms over her head to protect herself, pushing herself backwards into a wall – she didn't know which.

Another block of ice smashed onto the floor, and she felt the broken shards of it whistle past her face. She suddenly felt everything – all her senses were sharper, closer, more defined. She could feel the cold against her back where she is leaning, the dull ache in her shoulder, the visceral pounding of her hearts. She felt very _alive – _maybe because she was so close to death, she thought with a touch of irony. Her body felt hot, almost feverish compared with her surroundings; she could almost feel the heat of her blood flushing along her arms, surging swiftly through her veins.

And then the world jolted around her, throwing her violently forward. Her eyes flew open as she slammed hard into another wall, and red-blue light filled her vision. An internal corridor of the mole just visible through it.

* * *

Amy felt strangely distant from her panic as they slid backwards towards the yawning hole in the surface.

"I'm trying!" Gedric said, clutching the control stick.

He punched a button on the dash board and Amy felt the floor _vibrate_ under her feet. On the outside of the buggy, four extra wheels folded down onto the ice. But unlike the others, these had legs and looked rather like cart wheels without the outer rim.

They dug into the ice, but the buggy slid further and then stopped with a jolt that jerked them all in their seats.

Achingly slowly, they began to make upwards progress again, and Tamman prayed as Gedric, white-faced clutched the controls.

None of them, it felt, let out a breath until they were on level ground again.

* * *

Hearing a loud creaking, groaning noise, Fire looked up – to see a crack the width of her head renting the ceiling of the tunnel in two, getting wider and wider, and the roof screamed and fell one foot, then another-

She pounded desperately on the ice in front of her, pummelling it with her fists.

_I am not going to die I am not going to die I NOT going to die! _

But the roof was caving in above her, and all it would take was a badly enough damaged head and...

And then her blood ignited. Strength, hitherto unknown, surged through her, and with a mighty _smack _she landed her fist into the wall of ice in front of her.

Shining cracks spider-webbed out around it, splintering into tiny flakes of ice that melted against her hot skin. Her breath caught in her throat.

And then with another powerful blow, she kicked the damaged ice.

It shattered.

Gleaming chips of ice flew everywhere, catching the light; and for a moment time slowed and she saw herself as though from a great distance, stepping through glittering air and into the light.


	9. Bodies

**Author's Note:**

**At last, the end is near...couldn't resist having some Frank. It's the ultimate ending song, really, isn't it? Anyway, all (or some, at any rate) is revealed in this chapter...**

**This is a monster (for me) of a chapter, clocking in at over 5000 words, but the sequel, Flare, should be up by the end of next week – after that the posting might be a bit slower as the holiday ends **** but I'll try my best.**

**If you review I may or may not post a bonus chapter...**

**So you know what to do!**

* * *

Fire stepped cautiously down the corridor of the mole as warning lights blink and flash around her. She can't see the Doctor – and she was starting to feel apprehensive when she saw the marks on the wall. White lines mar the dark brushed metal, stress marks where it had been stretched and weakened.

The entire structure was shuddering around her, and she kept a hand on the wall to steady her as the floor bucked under her feet like a ship in a storm. She had to bodily heave the doors open, jamming her fingers into the seam and tugging them apart, her arms throbbing.

Her new found strength scared her , because she knew what it meant, and that thought makes her hurt like a wounded animal. But like she always did, she ignored the feeling to concentrate on what was around her. The floor in the other seemed to have _ripples_ in it, folds like it was a piece of cloth; and then she looked up and saw the other end of the room. Or what was left of it.

The entire thing had been twisted round ninety degrees, so that the ceiling was a wall and a wall was a floor – it looked rather surreal, like it had melted or was some kind of mad painting. Part of the side that was now the top had been caved in by an enormous piece of ice; spear-like and bigger than she was, it had skewered the space and buried itself in the now-floor.

Sheets of metal had torn and bent around it like paper, twisting over on themselves like great, metal, razor-sharp brambles, filling the remaining space. Beyond it, she could see a dark hole in the metal that might have been the mangled remains of a door, still open.

"Doctor?" she called out, but there was no response. Well, that ruled out one possibility – he wasn't just trapped, but properly unconscious or – possibly – dead. She wasn't really sure how she felt about the last probability. She supposed it would make coming down here and further risking her life a waste of time, all things considered.

Then she heard a noise – a soft hissing sound. It could be a broken ventilator of water pipe – it could also be a breath. She stilled, straining her ears for any other sound, but it's hard to hear over the constant rumbling around her.

There, again!

She started to look for him amongst the warped mass of metal, looking underneath pieces and doing her best not to cut herself. Then she sees some pales among the dark shapes; a hand. She reached for it, trying to touch it, and with the soft brush of fingers the hand twitched limply.

Straightening up she grabbed hold of the sheet of wall-floor and pulled, hard. She frowned in concentration, focusing her effort into moving it, inch by inch, her arms straining with the effort, blood thrumming through her. But slowly, it begins to move under her grip, peeling away to reveal a wrist, an elbow, a shoulder –

When she had finally made a large enough gap, she shimmied through it, squeezing in to kneel beside him. He didn't appear to be conscious, but as she touched him, checking his pulse and for injuries, he stirred and eyes blink open, squinting at her.

"You came back?" She didn't know how to answer, so instead she just gave him a tight, polite smile, patting down his legs. He winced when she tapped his left shin, and she frowned, pulling up his trouser leg. She gently probed the spot on his leg, but nothing appeared to be broken – just a dark, ugly bruise and a vicious but not dangerous cut.

_Fire..._ she jumped back as though burned when she felt a mind nudge hers, glaring at the Doctor warily.

"Sorry," he said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "I'm not..."

"Don't do that," she warned him, and she hated the tremor in her voice, giving away her feelings. Her skin crawled with revulsion – _so wrong, I don't know him, murderer – _and she grasped her right hand with her left, pinning it like a snake to stop its shaking. That mental contact – it was unmistakeably Time Lord. It had been what alerted her to the Doctor in the first place; she almost smiled at the irony.

"Come on," she said, putting an arm under his back and trying to pull him upright. "Let's get back to the capsule before this thing comes down on our heads."

"The TARDIS," he groaned, leaning carefully on his uninjured leg, mindful of the ever moving floor. "I call it the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension In Space."

"Spend a long time coming up with that, did you?" she teases him, dropping her arm as soon as she's upright. He flicked his hair out of his eyes and looked at her.

"My granddaughter, actually." Again, he'd said something she didn't have a response for. It feels odd to express her condolences when he, in all likelihood, was the one that got her killed. She turned away from him, rubbing her arm.

The Doctor wasn't like she had expected. He wasn't a hardened soldier or a fervent radicalist. He just seemed like an eccentric, slightly childish old man that missed his family and over-relied on his friends. It made her uncomfortable trying to reconcile her hated and _fear_ she felt at the idea of him to him in the flesh.

"Where is it?" she asked curtly. "I want to get out of here." The Doctor waited for a second as though expecting something else from her, and frowned, forehead wrinkling into horizontal lines.

"Yeah," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder as the mangled area she'd dragged him out form. "I don't blame you there." He strode off – well, as best he was able, with a heavy limp – towards another door, a nondescript affair without a control panel. She stood back as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and opened it, and followed him warily inside.

She wanted to laugh when she did – the space is tiny, taken up by a large box and what look like cleaning supplies.

"What part of your ship is this exactly? Storeroom? Cupboard?" He shot her a glare as he fished out a key from his pocket.

"You'd get along well with Rory," he muttered, slotting it into the TARDIS lock, "but this isn't my ship." He pushed open the door and limped inside, going straight to the console.

She stepped over the threshold, looking around her at the console room and raising her eyebrows.

"It's..."

"Bigger on the inside? Everyone says that," he finished for her, spinning to face her next to the console and momentarily forgetting who he was talking to.

"I was going to say 'gaudy'," she corrected him. "You've changed it a bit from the standard theme, haven't you?" The Doctor's face fell, and he turned back to the console, sensing that the last bit was probably rhetorical.

"_Not_ everyone says _that_," he muttered, bashing away at the typewriter. She walked up behind him, watching him fly the TARDIS, curious despite herself. She had learnt to fly a capsule in her youth, nearly all Time Lords did, and she had been a junior pilot later in her life, but she had never seen one flown by a single person before.

"Great stars," she said, spying something on the console. "What is _that_?"

"It's a typewriter," said the Doctor, looking up with a hurt expression.

"Is it in _English_?"

The Doctor sighed.

* * *

They picked up Amy and Rory just before they were about to be herded onto the rocket with the others. Rory grinned in relief when he saw the familiar outline of the TARDIS starting to materialize, squeezing Amy's hand. As soon as they hear the soft _boom_ of the landing, Amy has her key in the door and is charging inside.

She hugged the Doctor tight, burying her head into his shoulder and feeling a wash of relief at the sensation of scratchy tweed against her cheek.

"What _took_ you so long?" she teased, holding him at arm's length.

"I was a bit...pre-occupied..."

"With being unconscious," Fire filled in. Amy raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, who mumbled something indistinguishable and shuffled his feet like an embarrassed kid.

"That's my boy!" Amy laughed, punching the Doctor in the arm.

"Careful, Pond," he pouted, wincing and rubbing his arm, "I've got a few boo-boos."

"Sorry," Amy muttered, "hang on a minute. Rory!" she shouted over her shoulder.

"What?" Rory said, looking up.

"Doctor's got himself duffed up," she called.

"No need to say it _quite _so loud," the Doctor mumbled mutinously.

"Coming!" said Rory, striding over, assessing the Doctor with what Amy called his 'nurse face' on.

"I'm fine!" insisted the Time Lord.

"He has several large contusions on the left side of his body and back, a possible hairline fracture in the 13th left rib, and a deep laceration on the left shin and several minor ones across the right thigh and abdomen," Fire informed Rory, impervious to the Doctor's glare. "Also a large contusion on the back of his head – that was what probably knocked him unconscious."

Rory stared at her in surprise.

"Are you a Doctor of something?" he said.

"No," she replied quickly. "But I was a trained Medic."

"Huh," said Rory. "I'll just get my stuff then and I'll patch you up, Doctor."

"I'm _fine_," the Doctor whined, "really."

"You always say that," sighed Rory. "Just let me take a look, yeah? I'm a nurse, remember, I do know what I'm doing."

"Pond," the Doctor argued, "tell your husband that I'm ok. I'm fine, really, I've got amazing biology, me." Amy gave him a stern look and pointed her arm over to where Rory was pulling out his medical kit from a corner of the TARDIS. Seeing that he was outnumbered, he stalked off towards Rory, grumbling.

"Stubborn man," muttered Amy, shaking her head, and leant on the console opposite them.

"Oi!" said the Doctor as Rory is probed his head to check how bad the injury on it is. "Ow, that _hurts_, Rory!" he pouted.

"Oh, stop being such a baby," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "How old are you, 1000?"

The Doctor sniffed disdainfully, but Fire looked surprised.

"Really, you're one thousand years old?" she said.

"I know," smirked Amy. "Ancient, isn't he?"

"You've gone through nine bodies in a thousand years?"

"Ten, actually," said the Doctor, looking rather sheepish. Fire scowled and shook her head in irritation, muttering something to herself. Rory had by now taken out the dermal regenerator scanner and was trying to get a look at the Doctor's side, but the Time Lord kept fidgeting, unable to stay still. Finally Rory clamped a hand on his arm and forced him to sit down from where he had half-risen out of his seat.

"You're worse than some of the kids I deal with at the hospital," scolded Rory.

"Oh, stop _fussing_," snapped the Doctor, "and I haven't got a broken rib, you know. Give me that." He yanked the dermal regenerator out of Rory's hand and hopped up away from him to stand next to Amy.

Rory sighed – he knew it was only a matter of time – and turned to Fire.

"Are you alright? Going down there after him."

"I'm..." Fire checked herself over – she had several tears and holes in her clothes, but she didn't feel and cuts or even bruises on her. "I'm fine, actually."

"Yes you are," said the Doctor, causing the two humans heads to snap towards him. "Minds _out_ of the gutter, Ponds, honestly," he said in a long-suffering tone, stepping towards Fire with a squint. "But you have _no_ injuries. How did you do that?"

Fire met his gaze as levelly and coolly as she could manage.

"I suppose there are some things I should tell you."

* * *

Amy had insisted that she needed some tea before any further discussion happened, because 'otherwise I'm going to fall asleep and there's no _way_ I'm going to miss anything'. So she sent Rory off to the galley to get tea for three of them and a plate of Jammy Dodgers at the Doctor's request.

When he returned he settled himself next to Amy on a seat that had appeared from nowhere (the TARDIS must have fixed it) and handed out the tea, balancing the biscuits precariously on the edge of the console.

"No crumbs of the console!" the Doctor declared, putting the plate on his lap. "Wouldn't want to damage the equipment, would we?" Amy frowned at him suspiciously as her delicately picked up a Jammy Dodger and nibbled at it daintily. Usually, she thought, he'd just stuff it in his mouth.

She watched as his gaze flickered to Fire, who was standing ramrod-straight by the console, hands clasped in front of her, watching them with the same look on her face that Amy had seen earlier. An odd thought struck her.

Was the Doctor trying to _impress_ Fire?

He had told her (or rather, she had extracted from him) a bit about the Time Lords, about how they were formal and mannerly and very conscious of their dignity. The latter showing up slightly more clearly in the Doctor than the others.

It almost seemed like the Doctor was on his best behaviour or something, in the same way that Amy had acted around Brian when she and Rory had started going out; trying to make the impression that she was a good, well-brought-up young lady. Or in this case, a good, well-brought-up old Time Lord.

In any case, it didn't seem to be cracking Fire's aloof demeanour. The Time Lady settled herself carefully on the edge of the console.

"I should explain how I came to be here," she said. "As I told you before, Doctor, I was in a resistance unit back – on Gallifrey." She stuttered uncharacteristically over her words, catching them in her throat before the words 'back home' came out. "Myself and others were made aware of the main possibilities of how the war would turn out, and planned accordingly. We devised an escape plan to leave Gallifrey if needed, and how to survive on the outside if – " she cleared her throat and looked at the floor, "if it were no longer there."

"So are there any...others?" asked Rory quietly from the chair.

"No," said Fire. "Our plan went wrong and we were discovered. I was the only one that managed to leave before everyone else was captured. As to how I came to be buried in an asteroid...well, I'll expand somewhat more on my group. We were made up of a rather odd collection of people - scientists, soldiers, medics, engineers; we recruited refugees and the dispossessed. Those who had been outlawed or exiled because they opposed what was going on. Anyone we could get.

We didn't know what the universe would be like without any Time Lords to manage it – whether lesser parts of the War would still be raging. After all, some species would be able to tell that _something _had happened. So we planned for the worst – for another, unknown battlefield...and we adapted ourselves to that."

"When you say _adapted_..." said the Doctor cautiously.

"Yes," she answered. "changed, developed, evolved: whatever you want to call it." The Doctor made a small choking sound.

"What do you mean 'evolved'?" asked Amy, curious about the Doctor's reaction.

"We adapted our bodies to suit the conditions we thought we might face," Fire answered, looking at Amy. "Enhanced eyesight, hearing, smell. Resistance to infection or poisoning, to extreme temperatures, air levels, the works. Whatever we could, we upgraded."

"_Upgraded?"_ said the Doctor incredulously. "You experimented on people! Forced regenerations! That's tantamount to murder!"

"We did what we needed to!" Fire argued back passionately. "And it's not like _you _ were any better, was it? At least our programs were voluntary. _We_ weren't out to make some kind of super-soldiers out of children, like your friend the Rani – "

"How many of you were there doing this?" shouted the Doctor. Amy laid a hand on his arm, warning him.

"Twelve of us," she said quietly. "All volunteers. We went into it willingly." The Doctor, pale-faced, shook his head and sat back down.

"I have a bio-dermal electron shield, among other things, which is why I'm not injured."

"A _what?_" asked Amy.

"A bio-dermal electron shield," Fire repeated clearly, as though Amy were slightly hard of hearing.

"It bonds with the skin, Amy, repels pretty much everything," the Doctor explained. "But they take enormous amounts of energy, so how are you keeping it up?"

"It's only supposed to last for about a day following my regeneration," Fire said. "Being in the ice must have stalled it so it only activated when I did."

"Yeah, how did you get in there in the first place?" asked Rory, sipping his tea. Fire paused.

"It's a precaution against people following us," she said, looking almost apologetic. "The...capsule, escape pod, I was in had a gravity skin, programmed to sail into an unoccupied but forming region of space."

"So you weren't buried _in_ the asteroid, you _made_ it. Anyone looking for a ship wouldn't be able to find it because it was no longer there," said the Doctor.

"So, what, it attracted the ice to it and built up an asteroid around itself?" said Rory, putting the pieces together.

"Yes, essentially. Then it would have disintegrated," she looked rather unsure, for a moment, her eyes flickering to the Doctor's stony face. "Could I...use some of your medical equipment?"

"Why?" he said. "Something wrong with your regeneration?"

"I...I don't know," she said slowly. "When I was down there – in the ice, I mean – something happened, and I just want to be sure that...well...if it's part of the regeneration, or something _else._"

"What, afraid that one of your little _modifications_ has gone wrong?" he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

"It wasn't one I was made aware of," Fire said tightly, looking at the floor.

"Oh ho! So some parts weren't voluntary after all?"

"Doctor," said Amy quietly. "Don't."

Fire let out a long breath, clenching and unclenching her hands and glared at the other Time Lord.

"Just use your scanner," she snapped. "Get it over with."

"Alright then," he said, stepping up to the monitor, twiddling a dial and flicking a switch on it. "One full body scan, coming up." He squinted at the readings as they appeared, intertwining circles flashing on the screen.

"Increased density of olfactory cells...improved spectrum of vision, sensitivity to sounds..."

"I know about all of that. Anything else?"

"You've got some kind of organic strengthener - oricinide - running through all of your muscles." HE knew, instantly, that this was the thing she had been looking for. She nodded slowly, face unreadable.

"What happened?" the Doctor asked.

"I punched through a two-foot deep solid block of ice." Fire responded distantly."Thank you, by the way." she said, "At least it's temporary."

Why didn't she tell me? Fire thought. I would have agreed anyway. She felt a horrible feeling of betrayal creep through her. If she had been in altered without her knowledge in this way, was it possible that there were...other things?

How much of this new body was even her own?

As if to confirm her suspicions, she heard the Doctor make a soft exclamation.

"Oh, blimey," he whispered, running a hand over his face. "They've done a right number..."

"What is it, Doctor?" said Rory.

"Could you give us a minute, Rory?" asked the Doctor quietly. Rory took a look at his face, drawn and weary, and nodded. He grabbed Amy's hand, leading her up the stairs and out of the console room. Before they left, the Doctor saw Amy twist round to stare at him curiously.

"What is it?" enquired Fire, alarmed.

"It's not just your muscle system they've messed with – they've rewired quite a large chunk of your brain -"

"What?" she said, feeling faint. "What part? Give me that." She snatched the monitor, swinging it round to face her, eyes racing over the writing on the screen. Her face went pale. "Oh."

"Your hormone system," the Doctor said gently. "Looks like it's been based off a human's. Because, I suppose..." he looked very uncomfortable, and rolled his shoulders underneath his jacket.

"Because of how _successful_ they are?" she said, spinning to face him, contempt in her voice. "I'm a _Time Lady_, for stars' sake, not some – some –" She rubbed at her eyes furiously. The Doctor just stood there, not sure how he – especially he – could make her feel better about _any_ of this.

Fire could help but think that it was no wonder these second set of alterations had never been mentioned to her – she would have flatly refused to have them. Once again, though, she had been betrayed by someone she had trusted, even loved. Was she just a contingency plan all along? To be designed, remade, _used_ without regard or consent? Just a pawn? After fighting to escape the tyrannical control of Rassilon, had she really found anything better?

When She had given the order for this, had She thought it would have made Fire happy? Perhaps She thought she would call it a miracle, a blessing, in the way that a generation before, she might have done?

The first Time Lady for millennia able to bear a child. With the potential to be the mother to a new race of Time Lords – _and the intended father – _

She was a brood mare. Experimented on, with some kind of botched human-style reproductive system built into her, even her hormones redesigned so that she would _want _to – it was enough to make her feel sick – but she couldn't help but feel guilty for assigning blame to the dead.

"How could she?" Fire cried, tears filling her eyes and choking her voice. "How could she?"

"I –" The Doctor reached out a hand to lay on her shoulder but she jumped back, hissing, repulsed.

"No!" she shouted. "I _won't_ –"

"I'm not going to –" the Doctor protested, making a choking noise. "I'm sorry," he said, letting out a long breath. Fire looked up at him searchingly, hands dropping to her sides limply.

"I am too," she said sadly. "I am too." They both stand there then, not looking at each other, for a minute or two. She looked up at the sound of the Doctor clearing his throat; Amy and Rory slowly descend the stairs.

"Ah, Amy," the Doctor said. "Could you take Fire to the wardrobe please?"

"Yeah, sure," Amy mumbled.

* * *

Afterwards Amy sat with Fire in a corner of the library. They'd both showered, and after a long search through the wardrobe, the Time Lady chose an outfit almost identical to the one she had on already; sleek black boots that went up to her knees, thick leggings, a dark ¾ sleeved t-shirt.

The only new addition was a kind of vest-waistcoat in a thick grey raw silk, sleeveless, with a high mandarin collar and silver fastenings that followed the line of her right collarbone. To Amy, it looked vaguely oriental – this was compounded with the bun Fire had pulled her long hair into, and the teardrop earring dangling from one ear.

It was the way that the Time Lady has maintained absolutely no expression throughout this that made Amy think that Fire needs someone to talk to other than the Doctor.

"So," Amy said, drawing the word out the same way Rory would, "do you think you'll be coming with us?" She knew that the first time she had asked the answer had been an unequivocal _no, _but she'd gone down there to save him, hadn't she?

Dark eyes that suddenly look their age glanced at Amy before flickering back to the floor.

"I can't, Amy. I just can't."

"But you rescued him," Amy replied.

"So I don't want him dead just now," Fire said evenly. "But he still did those things – and I... I don't think I could bear to be around someone who's capable of that, not like you and Rory can."

"That's not fair." Amy flared, indignation and protectiveness for her friend rising in her. "He's not some kind of _monster_, he's just a man." She thought of the first time she had stepped aboard the TARDIS. "Just a mad man with a box. And he thought he was the last, the very last, of his kind - you don't know how he's suffered with that."

At this Fire looked straight at Amy, and she felt her ire melt away, leaving her feeling very young and foolish and a little scared. Fire was old, not older than the Doctor, but older than Amy could ever have had an understanding of being.

And to think, all of that age and knowledge, all of that power, had been turned to the purpose of war. And then to wake up, stranded in a new body, your family and home destroyed, with only their murderer for comfort. And those were just the parts that Amy knew.

She had known more that Amy ever had.

And now she has lost _everything. _

Amelia Pond knew what effect that had on the Doctor _now_, hundreds of years later, so she was consciously aware that she couldn't really understand how Fire felt immediately after.

"I am not cruel, Amelia Pond. But he deserves his suffering. He is the murderer of everyone I know of - my entire family. He stood above the greatest civilization time has ever known and set it on fire, watched as millions _burned_, in agony."Amy felt her skin crawl with the horrible flatness in Fire's dark eyes. "Even on your world being burnt alive is considered a barbaric way to die."

"But the guilt he feels-" Amy whispered. "Doesn't that - isn't that punishment enough?" The Time Lady was brutally, unremorsefully honest.

"I don't know if it is."

But then she looked suddenly unsure.

"There is no court left to try him, really. I could take him to the Shadow Proclamation, but they know nothing of the laws or customs of Gallifrey." She - well, not smiled - wryly, raising her eyebrows.

"As you said, Amelia Pond - the last of our kind. He is my...responsibility, but nothing else." Fire sighed, looking old and tired, and sad. That Time Lord sense of duty and propriety had been instilled since birth – she would do this because she thought it was the right thing to do, even though it was a grim task and she is going to hate it.

And right now, she hated the idea of staying with him, playing out the part this body was apparently made for, like an obedient puppet, even more.

"Please," Amy begged, leaning forward. "I've seen him save so many people, just in the time I've been with him. Doesn't that count, as a statement of character or something?"

"I...will consider it when making my judgment." Today at least had shown her the Doctor wasn't all bad – or at least, he was capable of good. "He has been travelling for some time after the event, in his own timeline, and if the guilt you mentioned...his attempts at reparations will be taken into account."

Her words made Amy think of the Doctor's words, said in a dusty, desert town; you do not choose when and how your debt is paid. And now he wouldn't have to. Before now, she supposed, he had never had the chance to work for a real, proper forgiveness, especially not from his own people. Maybe this would be good for him...

Slowly Amy nodded. "Then - OK. Just...don't take too long, yeah? He's already spent too much time alone." Regarding her solemnly, Fire nodded her agreement.

"I give you my word that I'll try, Amelia Pond."

"Amy!" It was Rory, who, seeing that she was talking to the other Time Lord, gave her a tight smile. "We're about to go now, so..."

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming."

* * *

They met the Doctor in the console room, the bright copper walls and shining lights seeming almost inappropriately cheerful for the tense atmosphere.

The Doctor turned to Fire and there was something slightly vulnerable in his expression. "Are you coming with us? Or not?"

"No - no. I can't. I have duties, of a kind, to attend to. Things I need to do. But maybe I will see you again - "she glances at Amy "not too far away." He nodded slowly, sadly.

"Where do you want to go, then?"

They landed in a quiet street somewhere in the 52nd century, and stood outside in the cool night air to watch Fire go.

"I guess I'll...see you around, then." He gave Fire a half-hearted smile. "Come along, Ponds," he said quietly.

Amy leant forward to give Fire a quick hug – the Time Lady standing stock-still under the contact - before Rory took his wife's hand and led her back inside the TARDIS.

The Doctor went to follow - and turned, halfway in the door, looking searchingly at Fire, almost like he was going to say something. But she gave him a small, solemn nod and took a step back from the TARDIS, drawing a line under her decision.

He thought, once again, the Universe seemed intent of making his life into a horrible mixture of tragedy and comedy. He found a wife but can't live a marriage with her. The Lonely Child of Gallifrey found another Time Lord, and she couldn't bear to be near him.

"Go, Doctor." He pressed his lips together and slipped inside, the door closing with a soft click behind him.

* * *

As she listened to the sound of the engines fading away, Fire felt a strange, distant kind of hope settle within her. The Doctor was not the death-hardened warrior she had expected, not uncaring about life.

The duality of her feelings warred inside her.

_He was a murderer._

_He was, according to Amy, a savoir too._

_He was the purpose of her betrayal._

_But that wasn't his fault._

And she didn't _want_ to reject him; he was, after all, the only other Time Lord. The only thing left of her _home. _She had been betrayed by her own people once again, for that reason – that they were the only ones left – but it also meant that for the first time in her life she was free of somebody else's plans. She could decide what she wanted to be, what she wanted to do. The was nobody left – but also nobody left to control her.

Not her father, not her grandmother, not her teachers or her government, not her spouse or her lover. Not even her renegade President.

_The very last_. She didn't think that a man like the one she has seen today could withstand such a thing as that and remain unchanged by it.

Because the way he looked at her, in that last moment - there was so much hope invested in that glace, hope for forgiveness. Such a desire would have influenced his actions, surely? He would have, as Amelia mentioned, already made attempts at reparations?

She would have to find out.


	10. Bonus: Awake

**Author's Note:**

**You reviewed, so here is the bonus chapter, as promised!**

**It's going up a bit later than I anticipated due to a very impromptu trip to Ireland, so I didn't have to time to write as I normally would. That's also why this is quite a short chapter. But I was thrilled to come back to discover that Ignite has now received over 1000 views this month! Mind. Boggled. Probably not very much compared to a lot of people, but it made me happy.**

**This is written from Fire's point of view during the chapter 'Awake'. There are a few flashbacks to when she was living on Gallifrey, including her previous regeneration...wasn't really intended to be that way, but this was how it came out! **

**I hope to do a full-length prequel to Ignite about Gallifrey called 'Kindling' (spotting a theme here?) which this is, I suppose, a kind of teaser for. Mainly I want to write a prequel to solve a few other plot bunnies and nags I have. In the Classic series, Gallifrey always comes across as a **_**very**_** politicized society, and yet fanfics about it don't seem to have much of this. Plot bunnies to the rescue!**

**I'll wind up my very long author's note by asking you to review and check out my upcoming sequel, Flare!**

**Thank you!**

* * *

When she woke up she was scared. Her mind raced, her new hearts thudded in her chest. Everything was bright and sharp and loud – she was struck again by the way she could taste the air around her, smells so detailed and strong she could feel them weighing on her tongue. She could hear a beeping, the sound of breathing, two people talking in a language she recognised but couldn't quite grasp.

She tried to remember how she had got here. How had she got here?

Her memories felt jumbled, the way they always did after regeneration - like an untidy room, everything in disorder. And then she remembered...

* * *

_The fire. The sky was on fire – that was what it looked like. The orange-red of the sky, overlaid with the shimmering gold of the transduction barrier, rippling and swirling like water, great bursts of light scattering across it as ship after ship battered against the atmosphere. Dalek ships, thousands of them. _

_Everyone was (had been told to be, in her opinion) utterly confident that the barrier would keep them safe – and nearly all of the remaining Time Lords had gathered in the Panopticon to wait out the attack. This wasn't the first time that they had experienced such a thing – many were old enough to have experienced the bombardments of the Other Gallifreys. So they sat there, seated in their regalia, the Tyrant upon his throne, and did nothing._

_But she was a coward, and she ran. To the one place she might have a hope of survival. Because she knew that none of those seated in the Panopticon, it's six sides now a mockery, would survive this. Not her mother or father, nor even her grandmother, a favourite of Rassilon and re-named by the man himself. _

_It was her grandmother who had warned her of what could happen today._

_And that was why she was running as fast as she could go, feet pounding the rust-coloured dirt and trampling the golden grass underfoot._

_Her grandmother's warning had come too late –_

* * *

No, she thought. That wasn't why she was here, there was something else. She hadn't ran here – the body that had been doing the running wasn't even the same one she wore now. This one was taller, she could tell. How had that happened? When had she regenerated?

* * *

_A machine, silver and sharp-edged, surrounding a plain white bed. People she trusted with her life, white faced, prepared to kill her to ensure that something of them survived. Her permission._

_Pain and pain and pain again searing though her exploding out of her skin and pouring through her mouth and burning through her blood and everywhere, everywhere, everywhere -_

_Cool hands stroked her skin, and she tried to cry out, to tell the hands to get back, but nothing came out of her throat but a choked hiss._

"_Ssh, ssh – you're doing really well, you're going to be wonderful -"_

* * *

But that wasn't how she got here either – and then she caught and held a memory, and knew that this was, somehow, the right one.

* * *

_There was a rumbling of noise somewhere around her, twisting in her ears, and she heard the voice again, warbled and far away, the words indistinguishable. Gravity shifted around her suddenly, and there was pressure under her arms and knees ,and something warm against her back._

_She wanted to ask what was going on, but her voice was all wrong, muted and deeper and cracked. _

_The pain receded, drawing away like a wave on a beach – when had she ever seen a wave on a beach? – and her body felt weak, boneless, crushed by its own weight, and she twitch feebly, jerking her legs. The pressure on her knees increased. _

_There was more garbled noise, what might have been screaming._

_Gravity twisted again and she was released, floating weightlessly, in complete darkness. It was silent in there – and then she pain crashed down on her, stabbing at her insides, and she filled the silence with her wrong-sounding screams._

_And then she felt a tingling rushing of her skin, the sense of the fabric of the world twisting around her, and she burst into flame once again._

* * *

She had jumped here! Through the Vortex, just like they had planned – but they had been discovered, and she had been forced into the ramshackle capsule they had built while she was still regenerating.

She decided to not open her eyes, or move – though she felt she could, and that at least was a good sign. It was just better not to give away to anything potentially dangerous that she was awake. Analyze the danger, she told herself, remembering her training. Be prepared, know your surroundings.

She catalogued the other sensations available to her. She was lying down. It felt suspiciously like she was naked – or at least not wearing any clothes – which was odd because she was almost completely sure that she had been wearing some not too long ago. Thankfully, though, she could feel that she was covered from the waist down. That was something. There was a strong sour odour in the air, like a disinfectant.

She also felt sore, which worried her. Regenerations healed all injuries – she shouldn't be experiencing any bodily pain. How badly had she been injured before regenerating? She told herself not to worry. The left-over cellular energy should take care of anything.

She identified the breathing patterns of two humanoids – one female, one male. The female one was close, right beside her in fact, unusually fast (she supposed) for a – a human? Must be. She couldn't translate the words right now, but she could at least identify the variant and time-frame of the language, and the noises of the words sounded human. In fact, she was starting to get the hang of it now. She listened harder. It was difficult – her mind felt scattered and fuzzy, and she wanted to sleep for an age.

She was distracted when she felt a flash of heat down her chest – it moved slowly in a straight line, almost deliberately. She pondered that for a moment or two. Then she felt it again. How odd.

Then a cacophony of noise exploded to her left, and the female said something that sounded very much like some kind of expletive and the heat on her chest stopped.

She opened her eyes. Everything was very white and shiny, and coupled with the disinfectant smell she guessed that it was some kind of Medbay. It was likely, she theorized, that she had been mistaken for dead or dying and the humans were trying to repair her. There was more shouting, this time the male as well. They were so _noisy_, humans, but she wanted to know what was going on. It took a few seconds for her to convince her new muscles to work.

The dark-haired human female was standing on her left, trying to control a large machine that looked like some kind of vitals system. Well, that explained the noise. She reached out an arm – she was paler this time, she noted distantly – and touched the woman's arm.

She didn't anticipate the ensuing screaming.

* * *

A few hours later the female – Mari, she had identified herself as – had given her clothes and food. She seemed non-threatening, though the male that accompanied her seemed wary, refusing to give his name and his hand resting on his weapons whenever he was in the room. He was the Mari's superior, she could tell; it was in the way her stood, the direct eye contact when he spoke to her.

So far she had tried to present herself as being as non-threatening as possible, though she was rusty on human social conventions and in her post-regenerative state was struggling to remember to finer points with interacting with them. Did they interpret eye contact as aggressive or sincere? How long to maintain it for? She still hadn't figured out their language, though she was beginning to pick up the general meaning of the statements made to her. She didn't reply, though, thinking it was best to sit there and play stupid if it helped her to understand her situation better.

In truth, she was starting to get frightened. Nobody – no Time Lords, at least – had come for her. She had spent much time of Gallifrey training her mind to block out all mental contact, so the feeling of telepathic isolation wasn't a shock to her. But she was deathly afraid that if she reached out, there would be nothing to find. That she would be the last one standing at the end of a war that had already cost so much.

It had, after all, been one of her grandmother's predictions. She remembered that conversation well – one of the rare times that she had been able to see her grandmother in person instead of receiving cryptic, barely decipherable messages in illegible script.

* * *

"_Gallifrey's days are closing in on us, my dear. Our Lord grows more and more determined to conquer our way out, but that is only one of many possibilities, endless possibilities, and what you and yours are plotting..." Her grandmother's eyes were intent, boring into hers. _

_She herself did her best to remain relaxed and keep her face unchanged, hoping that her nervousness would go unnoticed. _

"_Plotting, my lady? Not I." The older woman's eyes narrowed, and she glimpsed a remnant of the fierce intelligence that had once resided there. Now it had been washed away by madness._

"_I have seen it...I know it..." her grandmother replied, her voice wild and distant. "Our Lord bid of me..."_

"_And what did you tell the Lord President?" she replied, voice light but with a tightness that anyone else would have noticed. Her grandmother, however, didn't even seem to realise that she had spoken at all. Suddenly the old woman leant forward, gripping her hands painfully tight I her wiry hands, eyes wild but surprisingly lucid._

"_Listen to me," she said, her voice a harsh whisper. "I cannot say this again..."_

"_What, my lady?" she said, hardly daring to interrupt._

"_I will try to keep it from him, but I am not always aware of myself..."_

"_Yes?"_

"_There are many great days to come my dear, not always ones we might survive, but if you live past the fire, and the ice, and the fire again, if you plans succeed and others fail, if you wake to stars and not to soil, then you shall know the fates of Gallifrey and her children..."_

_She felt her mouth go dry and fear prickle at her backbone._

"_Gallifrey and her children; if you wake to them then we shall war eternal and forever; if you wake to no-one then that is precisely all of us. And if you wake to the one that is known and is to Time as one with you, then even Time itself is without form or shape – the universe shall be chaos, it shall be order, with the children of Gallifrey standing high and low together."_

"_And what if none of it shall come to pass, Grandmother? What then? I have guarded myself, as you instructed, for so many years. Surely it will be enough? After all this time?" She knew that her words were not steady, not calm as she had hoped, but this was the resurrection of her nightmares. This was the last thing she had hoped this damned War would bring. This was her curse, to be hidden in shame all her life._

"_It is part of you, child, it might still be. Be wary if it, repent over it, but do not seek to deny it, not least of all to me."_

* * *

She had not seen any Time Lords at all so far. Not more than one to predict a war, not that one particular one that was her dishonour, her shame incarnate.

She was all alone.


End file.
